Apocalypse Please
by hellohworld
Summary: Our heroes experience grief and hilarity as they face zany zombies, perilous pandemics, splendiferous stars, that pesky cupid, and above all, each other. An AU collection of apocalyptic standalones featuring Team Gai, NejiTen and company.
1. Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

As each chapter is entirely standalone, feel free to start wherever you like. But because the stories differ so much from chapter to chapter, the list below contains a summary of each individual chapter/oneshot. No warnings, except for some gore, angst and some sultry situations.

**Ch.1. **_INDEX! _You are here. What flavour of apocalypse would you like to read?

**Ch.2. "**Hold Me Now": _RUMBLE!_ A global cataclysm takes the world by tremors and storms.

**Ch.3**. "One Day, Robots Will Cry": _ROBOTS!_ Set on the moon during a nuclear fallout in which Neji is an android and Tenten is his mechanic.

**Ch.4**. "When the World is Closing in": _WAVES!_ As a wall of water looms over the horizon, Neji and Tenten do their best not to drown.

**Ch.5.** "Morning Tide": _SWEAT!_ A lonely amnesiac wakes in his own puddle of sweat and attempts to recover the springtime of his youth.

**Ch.6.** "At the Beginning": _BRAINS!_ Zombies, ahoy! Team Gai kick putrified butt as the world becomes overrun with the living dead.

**Ch.7.** "Soft & Warm": _PEAK!_ Oil prices skyrocket, and Neji and Tenten strike up a romance in the abysmal economic depression that follows.

**Ch.8. **"Tears below the Freezing Point": _SHIVER!_ Hell freezes over, but it's time to greet the sun.

**Ch.9. **"Make Room, Make Room!": _BABIES_! Homo sapiens en masse. This does not bode well for Neji's pregnant cousin.


	2. Hold Me Now

_Hold Me Now_

Four days. It was the fourth day since they had kissed, there at the beginning of the end, and four days since the apocalypse reared its ugly head.

And yet, it didn't feel like just four days. Neji didn't know if it was just him or if the convex of time really had been screwed over in the process, but the time they spent away from civilisation felt like a good _year. _And yet, he could remember as if it were just the last, fresh hour past: he smelled pretty, had on some comfortable clothes, a shot of scotch in his hand and was exchanging conversation with Hanabi.

They were throwing a surprise birthday party for Hinata, who had begun her first year at university that spring. Neji's longtime friend and almost lover, Tenten, had been talked into attending by him—a fairly awkward situation for the trembling undergraduate.

So, to ease her troubles, Neji had excused himself from his cousin's presence, grabbed Tenten by the elbow and whispered for her to meet him in the corner outside his bedroom.

"Relax," he'd said once they were there. Tenten pulled down her white shirt, holding some punch close to her mouth. She kept her eyes fixed on him, a learned glare.

"I never thought I'd say this but," Tenten said, smacking her lips, "I wish Lee were here."

Tenten downed her punch in a single gulp, and she used one arm to clutch Neji by the collar. Then, she used her free hand to push open the door of Neji's bedroom and soon, she had pressed him onto the wall with her breath skimming along his neckline.

"Hm, I'd never thought I'd hear that coming out of your mouth."

Tenten narrowed her eyes, skillfully twisting her head so that her lips, glossy and full, were a short distance from his own.

"I don't trust myself around you when he's not here." Her leg thrust forward, so that her knee had brushed his thigh.

"Father's late," Neji said, plainly. The lighting in his room wasn't doing much for the hot flush in his cheeks. "Shall we leave this till the special guest arrives?"

"No," she growled, kissing him.

Neji had stopped breathing for a moment, then. The blood stopped in his fingers and toes.

She was kissing him. Tenten was _kissing him._

* * *

Neji remembered the next part well, because something strange happened. Something unthinkably _biblical._

The ground shook, Tenten had broken away and was clutching onto his sleeves for dear life. The scotch had slipped out of his hands, and he instead had them, instinctively, wrapped around Tenten's crown.

Maybe he collapsed, maybe he was knocked into unconciousness. Neji couldn't recall, because before he knew it, he was alone and it rained and it rained. The fat pellets of water drop-drop-a-dropped all over his body. Neji's eyes flittered open in response, only to realise that it wasn't the rain dripping over his face. Well, it _was _raining; he could hear it, smell it. But he was under cover, so it couldn't have been rain that pattered him, rather, something else.

Neji pushed his lids open all the way up; to see that it was Tenten's tears that touched him, inside and out.

Neji sat up from his bed of rubble, dazed and confused. The tall, tall skyscrapers that had towered over the city had disappeared, and the streets were in utter disarray; his hair was jagged and wiry. But all that didn't matter—what had _happened?_

"What—" His lip tore as he spoke, his hand came over to soothe his throbbing head, and even that hurt to do.

"There's been this massive earthquake, you've been asleep for almost three days straight, and I was beginning to think that you'd never wake up," Tenten sniffled. She pulled up her pink sleeve to her fingers and wiped her eyes with them. "Damnit, don't scare me like that ever again!"

"Be calm, don't cry," Neji tried to say, placing a hand on her shoulder, "Now, are you hurt?"

"I'm not crying! And you're telling me to be _calm?" _Tenten all but screamed. "Stupid man! _I'm_ fine. But you, you're—I thought you'd…"

"That's all that matters," Neji huffed. Her face didn't look quite right to him. Tenten was spent, and characteristic hair tied up in buns had loosened. She pink hoodie that had been tied around her waist was fitted around her torso, but even with the added colour Tenten lacked her usual vigour. "But where's everyone else?"

"They're out calling for help," she said. Her face came under a beam of light, and Neji could see how dark the skin was below her eyes. "Left just this m-morn—"

"The rings around your eyes," Neji cut in, knuckles softly brushing her wet cheeks, "have you stayed awake all this time?"

"Oh," she breathed, switching subjects, "It's awful; they'd told us that this would happen! And if what they said was true then the world will end and pretty soon we'll all be screwed over."

She was right; there had been some fleeting mention of it on news reels a few days ago. But it too was disregarded along with the last few grains of dinner, as there was only one in a _million_ chances that what happened would actually happen. And even then, they never told them when and gave them word of nothing more than a vague, disastrous "unlikely".

"Tenten," Neji said, scooting over, "I won't leave you."

Then, he had nothing more left to say. But he used that to his advantage, as Neji had always found it easier to communitcate with silence. So he simply wrapped his arms around her and ignored the ache in his bones. Tenten babbled some of her usual nonsense about his dastardly cheating ways, but failed to budge at all.

And all words were lost when she finally stopped fighting against Neji, and placed her hands around him, too.

Then they'd stayed like that for a while, until Tenten stopped shaking. The rain didn't stop, and continued onto the next day.

* * *

Tenten had deemed Neji competent to fend for himself the following morning when she went to salvage whatever she could from the ruins.

Neji was then more or less available to make some calls, so he whipped out his mobile to see if he could get through to his father.

When opted, the screen surprisingly turned on with its bright blue glow, and greeted the dreary day with its chirpy little opening graphic.

Even more surprisingly, _there was reception! _Neji felt it hard to resist cracking a triumphant smile, especially as he was greeted with yet another pleasant shock. As he began punching in his tired old dad's number, he had realised his cousin had been nice enough to sent him a text already.

Neji was however still intent on giving Hizashi a ring, since he sure would've liked to have a firsthand status report. He held the phone close to his ear, and a familiar, reassuring beep met his eardrums as he waited for some seconds. And then finally, there was a voice on the other end of the line.

"Father?" Neji said, straining to hear the faint voice through erratic, crackling static. "Whatever happened? Where are you? Is Hinata with you, and are you alright? How's uncle?"

"We're fine, son." Neji could just barely make out the words. "It's been rather—"

The phone seemed to be snatched away then by Hinata, who cried, "Neji? Neji! Gosh, y-you're okay, I—"

"Hinata! Are you alright?"

"Yes, yes," she said. Neji could imagine her smile through her words. "We—"

Hinata's voice, bold and nervous, was cut off, followed by a dying bleep. Neji bore his eyes onto the tiny two inch screen, angry with disbelief. He hadn't even gotten the chance to say, "happy birthday." The battery was flat.

He groaned and had fleeting thoughts of chucking the phone into a pile of rubble. It had really picked the wrong time to die. But because he figured that he had always been rather fond of that nauseatingly cute opening theme, he would forgive it that one time.

It was then that Tenten returned with a packet of dried squid. It was the only thing she could find submerged in the mud, and they shared the thing in little bites. Conversation was however, less scarce. Tenten talked like nothing was wrong and Neji played along, all in an effort to recreate the feel of safety and idyll they had before the whole affair began. They talked and talked and talked, until the moon rose up high in the sky, and it was time to sleep again.

* * *

Only now, on the fourth day, had the party's attendants returned. Neji and Tenten's stomachs had hardly been quenched by the salty sundries, and Neji couldn't help but assume that the rescue team was only a small milestone looming over the horizon. But on the other hand, he guessed that things were looking better than they had expected, and although the sun came up red and the sky bled a troubling mix of colours, it had at least stopped raining.

And once he had grip of Tenten's fingers he clutched it tight. Neji had almost forgotten the fact she held his hand in the midst of it all, a feat that in itself that brought hope to his day.

But that small moment of felicity was only the calm before the storm.

After the earth crumpled right under their feet, the sea broke too, washing upon international shores strange, dead creatures of the deep. The sky gave in once it saw its brothers had also, and then the world was raged by ferocious storms and tsunamis alike. They were no ordinary storms at that, but instead great tempests of giant hail and imperishable lightning. Just the weathermen and cosmologists said it would, only in perhaps a few hundred years.

Not _now._

* * *

Subsequently, desperate times called for desperate measures. It was only inevitable that the Hyuuga family—the _extended _Hyuuga family—would have a grand, big meeting about it as soon as they could.

It took place on the seventh night of the apocalypse, because the family needed time to arrive at headquarters, and some more to tend to the wounded. Neji had a band-aid slapped on his cheek and his cuts all sewn up by the time one certain manor was filled with the rest of his relatives, and although he had physically recovered, Tenten believed that he was mentally anything but. However, their decisions had to be made "as swiftly and efficiently as possible"; hence Tenten had to let the matter go.

She simply grinned and bore it, and watched as the family's most important members gathered around the dining room's heirloom of a table, sitting down one by one. They soon got to talking, and it wasn't long before the hall was filled with the guttural sounds of disagreement.

* * *

Outside, it kept storming and time was ticking. Indoors, Tenten was yawning and Neji had resorted to slumping on his knuckles.

She was bored, and he dipping into apathy. Both were becoming antsy after an hour-and-a-half's worth of tiresome conference, so a side-glance, a wink, a grope and half a heartbeat later they were consummating their relationship in the bathroom upstairs, because they had grown tired of all the noise, and for some strange reason that room was the quietest in the entire manor.

Tenten sniffled in the course of it, but not because it was too painful to bear, not that she had expected it to be more romantic or even better; it was just that she had suddenly become worried about _Lee_ (of all people) and his stupid, springtime antics. He was their third best friend, and sure he could be an annoying buffoon at times, but she missed him and hoped to god that he was safe.

The world would be... so much less _youthful _without him.

Sprawled out against the sink, Tenten's eyes had darted to the tap, then back to Neji, and to the tap again. She couldn't quite control keep track of all that was happening, she was so dizzy. Then more whiteness came flooding in, spreading across her nerves like an electric current. And for a moment, somehow all the discomfort and blood had been worth it.

Because of that—that strange, new sort of pleasure—Tenten kept her mouth shut until they were well and truly done. When Neji had fumbled with his belt (since when had he been so awkward?) and likewise and Tenten fixed her white-spotted panties to where they were before their hurried tryst.

It was finally then that Neji smiled at her, and they decided to talk about what had been on her mind. In any case, it had been difficult reading each other's expressions in all that blur of tile and skin and limbs. And thank god he did ask for once and thank god again because Tenten was thereafter finally notified that Lee had indeed messaged him a few hours ago.

It filled her relief to hear he was safe and they were to see him tomorrow, but that relief soon thinned into tension and then unadulterated rage with the fact that Neji didn't even _think_ to tell her about it.

Unaware of just how strong she was, Tenten punched him in the gut after deciding that she truly had it with him. As a consequence, the skin from his forehead to his chin then burned bright pink, and Neji ended up looking like he had just been pepper sprayed.

But seeing Neji twisted like that, Tenten was instantly sorry.

She kissed him, kissed him, coiled her hands around his ribs, and apologised three times over.

Neji shook his head, confused as to why she was doing just that. Because it was his fault that he hadn't told her and the crazy Armageddon's fault for causing all that disruption within their comfortable little circle.

He wrung one arm around her spine, patted her head and told her she shouldn't worry. She shouldn't worry because if what the news said was true, then all they had to do was wait it out for a couple of months more, and it'd all be over.

It'd all be over soon, so for now they'd just had to watch the sky and hope.

* * *

When they had reentered the dining room, Tenten noticed that things had quieted down a fair bit. The elders seemed satisfied, the adults were (relatively) calm, the teenagers were either amused or excited, the children had begun to play again, Hinata smiled and Hanabi had turned from sulky to productive.

But on the other hand, the degree of fear had not dissipated _much_, and that sense of tension was only made worse by more thunder, the wail of a baby or two, and the reporters on the ominous LCD screen that kept on droning on about rising tides and more earthquakes and volcanoes and tornadoes or something of the like.

It didn't do much to raise anybody's spirits, but it was mostly standard fare stuff, nothing special, and nothing to have their hopes of escapes crushed in the double-crossing shock of an afterthought. With one exception—

_M__eteors. _

Tenten worriedly glanced over at Neji and squeezed his hand behind his back. He tried to look reassuring, but failed, and could only throw a desperate look over to his father and his uncle. Both looked perfectly grim, and it was then that the announcement was made:

"Weather forecasts depict _meteor rain _where we're at," Hizashi proclaimed.

"How—" Tenten gaped. Neji too, looked shocked. Surely if the meteorologists, seismologists and whoever the hell else was important out there could predict all that topographic jazz, surely they could've seen a _freaking_ meteor shower coming a little bit sooner.

"It's nothing that'd destroy the world or anything, but they say it'll fuck up this continent pretty bad," a third cousin of Neji's added casually. His classy mother however, was not nearly as untailored as he, and seemed quite displeased with his use of language. She smacked him upside the head and snapped at him to watch his tongue.

"Thanks for informing us, Daisuke," said Neji, squeezing Tenten back.

"No probs," Daisuke replied. Leaning back on his chair with his hands around the back of his head, Daisuke grinned like a madman. "And oh, that your new girlfriend over there?"

Before Neji could even blush, Daisuke's mother had scolded him for his unruly behaviour yet again.

Neji was exempt from answering, but the corners of his lips did drop. Tenten on the other hand, let out an amused laugh; it probably didn't matter whether or not Neji confirmed it for himself. Most of the Hyuuga by then had known Tenten's name and heck, she was sort of family already. So when the jury ended their meeting and made their second announcement, that the _whole _family was going to fly the hell out of there, it wasn't surprising that Tenten had been offered a ticket and a place, too.

And of course, they couldn't forget Lee, whose name they _also _knew, who was _also _good enough to be another member of the proud Hyuuga household, albeit one less welcomed.

Tenten had always admired the Hyuuga clan; they were this force of nature that was overwhelmingly organised and just so very _together. _Despite their sheer size and some odd bumps here and there, their composure and cooperation during the apocalypse itself gave rise to a new level of respect that Tenten held for them, and even more so when she was informed that they were allowed to take Lee along, too.

* * *

"How _do _you guys get all this stuff?" asked Tenten, finger to mouth.

"You mean the tickets?" Neji wandered over to one of the serving tables, and stabbed a slab of watermelon with his fork.

"Not just that—I mean it isn't the first time the family's done something like this." Tenten popped in a cherry, and spoke with her mouth full, "We've got a tonne of people, and I can't imagine how high the demand for tickets would be!"

Neji shrugged, in comparison chewing and swallowing before he spoke.

"Connections," he said simply.

Neji then sighed in a relieved way, and it seemed to be the first time he had eased up in days.

* * *

Under the usual circumstances, Neji would excuse himself up to his room after the congregation and spend some time in meditation, play some darts with Tenten or read a book or something. But on that particular night he didn't even need Tenten to remind him that family-time was important too, so he stayed and huddled around the hearth with her. All of them—Hyuuga and friends—eagerly kept their eyes and ears open any additional news, falling asleep just like that until the doorbell rang the following morning and one young Hyuuga girl went to answer it.

Both Neji and Tenten would have liked some more sleep after such a gruelling week, but they could hardly contain their _own_ excitement when the Great Big Ball of Green himself came bouncing into the lobby. With _Forever Young _in full blast via the diaphragm of the Sexy Beast, no less.

Tenten jumped and squealed and Neji had smiled while Lee would not stop grinning and thanking and grinning some more.

All that glee did not however, even add up to Lee's explosive exhilaration when Hiashi dropped past and handed him a plane ticket. He'd tried to restrain to himself to no more than a handshake, but failed and gave him a bone-crushing hug.

* * *

Right after Lee had arrived at the grand breakfast table, seated himself among pancakes of every flavour (chocolate, banana, cinnamon...) and got to eating with the rest of the residency, Tenten sat across from him and grinded her thighs together in impatience. Neji could only wonder whatever it was that had worked her up like that until after ten sticky rounds of maple syrup, where they split up with Lee and she rushed him right through to a random pharmacy.

Then Neji thought, _oh_, and it was all he could do to keep himself from flushing.

* * *

It happened again the filtered sunlight of the afternoon, with a little less impulse and more deliberation this time around. She had opened the door—just a bit too slowly—with her keys, flopped on her small bed, and then soon enough Neji has grasping at her chestnut hair and kissing her behind the ears. A little later he sat with his nose and lips and tongue below her navel, both hands on either side of her hips. On that small, rickety crib they became a tangle of long black hair, beaded sweat, mutilated personal space and hushed nothings.

The following afternoons were spent like that, too, wrapped up in dust and not much else. But besides the splendid feeling of idyll often associated with it, a lot of sweat and a lot of tears took precedence within their circle of family and friends as well. The former was mostly due to all the mandatory fluttering about needed for packing a goodbye suitcase, from fishing obscure toy tins they'd never remembered having and the latter from the sheer heartache of having had to leave home, forever.

So it was only natural that everyone each had their own sort of nervous-breakdown slash panic-attack slash cry-laughing moment by the following Thursday's end—the date they would grab fate by the balls and fly themselves right out of that apocalyptic mess.

* * *

When they _did _finally get there by the busload, after Hanabi's brooding, after Hinata's caring too much, after Lee's breaks into song, and everyone's copious sums of worrying, it was still raining. Everyone became somewhat exited as soon as they retrieved their trolleys and went to check in at three in the morning, but the planes were delayed for so long that the hundreds of Hyuuga, plus Tenten, Lee and a few other special friends, had stayed in that airport for at least seventeen hours straight before they could board their ride.

They had expected that a riot break out but surprisingly, order was kept among the denizens and diplomats. Seeing them carrying on like nothing was wrong cast a warm serenity and solidarity over the boarding gates, and enabled them to spend those seventeen or so hours mucking about.

They ordered Happy Meals and gingerly fished French fries before dipping them in tomato sauce. Tenten chased Neji with ridiculous hats from the duty-free shop, read trashy magazines off his back and at the end of the day, simply slept with her head on his shoulder. It was a nap well deserved after a day's work fooling around with Lee and the displays, making friends with absolute strangers (though that was more Lee's forte), and pacifing a weeping Hinata.

* * *

It was almost nine o'clock at night when it was finally time for them to to depart. Outside, the rain was all but entirely gone; the sky had regained that eerie, beautiful opalescence.

Tenten sat between Neji and Lee, with Daisuke at the back and Hinata at the front. The lights dimmed and the mandatory safety video came on, and with refreshments and the usual blockbuster movie offerings presented to them, Tenten felt safe again. And she knew that they—each and every one of them—did too.

There were even quite a few familiar faces she'd seen around and about, and in some cases, befriended, too, when she darted her eyes across the cabin. A tattooed kid called Kiba and his family, a man who never took off his shades, a rounded fellow, a platinum blonde beauty, a sleepy-looking chessmaster, a guy with whiskers, and a girl with pink hair. Tenten felt glad, happy and suddenly, _grateful _that they had also been able to make it.

Then her eyes settled on Lee, asleep on her left arm. And she thought, he was right, _youth is like diamonds in the sun_.

On her right sat Neji, and although that brush of a shoulder between four layers of cloth wasn't much compared to their heated pre-calamity afternoons, it was enough for Tenten that he was just _there. _It was the sacred simplicity of him at her side that had never been disrupted not ever and not now. A simple glance from him assured her that he'd have her back (and Lee would too), for better or for worse, till death would they part.

And then she remembered something about one of their ancient conversations about death and the celestial ascension, thought of a couple of fatal scenarios that might've happened but concluded that _hell_, heaven could wait when she had friends like those to live for.

* * *

hold me now  
don't start shaking  
you keep me safe  
don't ever think you're the only one  
when times are tough in your new age  
_#1: Hold Me Now  
_—**FIN**—

* * *

**Author's Note: **I'd imagine Neji to be a pretty sweet guy if his father hadn't died on him. Anyway, here's happy ending number one. Tried to stray away from teenage angst and instead attempted to capture that positive, doe-eyed adolescent feel with these guys. Hope it worked.

Also, thank you for your reviews and ideas, and I'll be sure to keep them in mind. I took a trip down to the awesome ExitMundi, and I've secured the certain apocalypses I want to do! The chapters that are up currently cover natural disasters in general, so I don't think I'll be revisiting many of them anytime soon. I **will** be doing yes, the classic zombie one because I've wanted to it do since the beginning. The next chapter will be an oneshot which explores nuclear wars and robotics... and then I will do a boiling world scenario, and one featuring a tsunami. There's an oil peak story that I want to do too, and that's about all so far. How about you, dear reader? You guys can request any sort of apocalypse you would like to see written.

**6th of May, 2012: **Table of contents added, chapters one and two merged.


	3. One Day, Robots Will Cry

_One Day, Robots Will Cry_

They commonly referred to them as the Pivot-9 soldiers. Their names were the acronym of some cause that was in all its lengthy glory, too convoluted and meaningless to the citizens of the Konoha settlement to even bother uttering every few minutes. So they just called them Pivots. Nine for the ninth model in the series, after the basic Pivot-1 that served no other purpose other than as a mediocre (albeit successful) demo and up until the latest, greatest, Pivot-8. A model which was hailed as a milestone in cognitive robotics second to none in the world.

But the Pivot-9 was a different beast. They had been built accordingly with the announcement of the War, and each one was given a weapon, a task and a name in preparation for it. Their bodies were made of the finest materials; silicon and titanium alloy, and sent off to the front lines on earth to fight for their respective countries once they were ready.

And the reasoning behind producing that colossal financial investment was simple: human cowardice, and greed. Another war was brewing, and mankind's mother planet was much too far into the stage of decay and pollution for any human to step on the rotting soil without adequate protection, let alone fight. So naturally, the robots had been the warmonger's optimal choice.

At the time, Tenten was a talented young apprentice of one of the most prestigious firms in town. She was quick with any tool, awfully deft with it too, was magic with a laser in hand, and could've pursued a job as a cadet if she wanted. She was plucky, but promising. So much that they even placed under the tutelage of the Hyuuga Hizashi himself, a company executive and a prodigal robotechnician in his own right. One who had never even considered conceiving a child since his ailed wife had died years ago.

It, or rather—he, was a special case. A Pivot-10 model, a handmade creation by Hizashi's own hands. Unlike his distant cousins, the Pivot-10 was not manufactured in a mass-producing warehouse on the moon missions, but instead built from scratch in the office of his personal creator.

Tenten guessed that the android, youthful and handsome, was the closest thing to Hyuuga Hizashi's only son. She could never quite understand why they made some of them so lifelike, and breathed such individuality in some of them before, but with Mr. Hyuuga's case, the situation was one understandable to all but the cruellest and most unfeeling members of mankind.

As any empathetic entity would know, Hizashi's heart had died along with his wife, and seeing him work on the android with such warmth and dedication it was no surprise that Hizashi had intended to take charge and give himself something to live for.

* * *

He had nicknamed him "Neji", and that was the name Tenten began to use. Not only because it would be awkward to call him by his model name every time she opened him up to oil his insides, but also out of respect for her mentor.

Neji's abilities were identical to the other Pivots, still retaining their trademark ability of generating an azure, helical spin as a temporary guard against a force up to a couple dozen times the mass of the machine. But Neji was also immeasurably different from them: he was exclusively programmed with trains of thought upgraded from the Pivot-8 androids, implanted memories, a spark that closely imitated emotion, and plenty of files that downloaded unto him the gift of empathy. He was given tear ducts, sweat glands, fingerprints and even a glass heart.

Hizashi gave him long black hair to match his own and took every step to ensure the machine was as human as possible. The only thing that had physically differentiated the android from other human beings was his eyes; hollow cameras hiding behind a soft lilac screen, Hizashi had not given the Pivot-10 any pupils when he died. Still, even that was fixed later when they made him custom irises, coloured a defining, dull gray.

And it was not surprising that Hizashi's body perished; resting with his heart once the Pivot-10 was complete. Officially, on his tidy, laminated death certificate, it was written—FATIGUE FROM HEARTBREAK—and Tenten couldn't agree more.

* * *

True craftsmanship, they had called it. Even so, they did not showcase Neji when he was completed. At least, not immediately.

This was contrary to what they told Hizashi. Though Hiashi had sworn not to exploit his twin brother's creation, his say in the matter eluded him. The Hyuuga Company had moved far from their humble beginnings as a family corporation, and no longer relied on the general goodwill of its familial members, but instead on monetary and political gain.

The matter was beyond his grasp, and Hiashi could only watch his woeful "nephew" from afar.

The poor thing was probed daily with thousands of external cables and cords, as he had become the subject of the Caged Bird Project. Neji was forever shut out from the public's view and forced within pristine white walls from day to day, because even the company's head psychologists where absolutely stupefied by the Pivot-10's mental capacity. He was possibly more human than human, and there was not a chance they'd let that trillion dollar goldmine slip away.

* * *

Tenten, who had previously been an auspicious intern under the tutelage of Hizashi, played the role of Neji's personal repairwoman.

Only, she became much more than that.

As his mechanic, it was Tenten's job to oversee the experiments, and that usually meant _every waking minute of the day_. Then she would have to lay aside a few more hours of her time to touch him up again after their 'research' was complete for the day. And then there were days where they _did _break him, and in that case Tenten could spend up a whole week straight with him in her workshop fixing and oiling.

With that, Tenten found herself conversing with Neji often, because she talked to him about his father and Neji liked hearing things about him. Because he had fairly interesting things to say, even if he did not talk often. Because she was lonely, and Hyuuga Hizashi had been her only friend before he died and Lee left. Because Neji harboured a deep hatred of rebooting, a process that triggered unpleasant side-effects, which meant more conversation with Tenten as a result when he stayed awake.

Waking up from a reboot was a state of extreme confusion and discomfort, one that Neji described as comparable to a human hangover that lasted much longer with a greater intensity. It was one of the few flaws of his nigh-perfect system that Hizashi failed to perfect before his death, and he always avoided it when he could.

And so, because of this constant clashing of metal against metal, day after day, they began to form a kinship never shared before by woman and machine.

* * *

"Neji," she said one day, drilling into his collarbone. "How does that feel? Do you want me to shut you down for the time being?"

"No," he'd replied, wincing as he said it, "I rather you not reboot me. And besides, I lack a true nervous system, do you forget? The electrical impulses that travel through my body are only a mere mockery of what you humans feel through your complex networks of neurons and—"

"Neji," Tenten stopped him. "I'm no biologist. Just a humble engineer. I have _no idea _what you're talking about."

"Oh." Neji turned his head. This time Neji grunted as she withdrew her drill from his metal plate, and rubbed it over with some polish. "I apologise. But it is true; rebooting is a tedious and most... painful experience."

"I can imagine," Tenten said absentmindedly as she unscrewed a hidden nail at the back of Neji's neck. She then stuck her rubber gloves into his socket, tangling her fingers in his wires. "Almost done."

Neji head arched back as her nimble hands flipped through his circuit, an expression of pleasure glazing over his face. "_Ah."_

"I can never understand why you like it when I do that." Tenten retrieved her hands and resealed that opening.

"Yes," he mumbled. It had always appeared strange to Tenten that an android with such a sombre and personality conveyed that much emotion from the subtle expressions animated on his face, alone. Sure his speech was rather flat, but even that had its own sort of quirk to it when he did show the odd change in pitch—in fact, that was what made him seem so _real._ He was a true mark of craftsmanship, for sure.

"Something's on your mind." Tenten placed her instruments back on her metal tray, being done anyway.

"Hmmm." Neji locked his fingers in place to manage the weight of his chin. His eyes bore forward, anguished, unreadable, and undeniably _fallible, _mortal_._

Sighing deeply, Tenten tucked a lock of hair behind her hair. She was absolutely spent, though to be fair, after a continuous year of such laborious full-time work it was hard not to be.

"I think I shall miss you," he said. The comment came out of an apparent nowhere, and Tenten's mouth shaped into a little O in surprise.

"Whatever for?" she laughed, turning off a couple of the lights, "I'm not going anywhere soon, though I really wish I could."

"I'm leaving; I want to see it for myself."

She kept silent as she lingered between the door and the hall.

"I want to see my first bird. I want to know how it is they are able to fly across the sky with such ease, freedom. I've _dreamt_ about them, Tenten. I've—" His words were becoming faster with each successive sentence—a sure show of true excitement. Tenten's stomach twisted sour; she hated how human Hizashi made him sometimes. It made it so difficult for her to disregard him.

Tenten cast him a mean glare, hands clenching tight around the knob of the door_. _She hadn't felt so hot all over since Rock Lee had told her he was emigrating yet again. She had since forgiven him with the invention of intergalactic video feeds, but that very same feeling still boiled fresh and raw within her heart.

"_What?_" She gritted her teeth, wanting to chuck a crowbar at that scrappy superbrain of his.

"All I ask," he said, smiling what seemed like his first smile, "is that you keep that a secret until I have landed on the earth."

"Why would you do that? They—the earth's a wasteland now, surely you know that! There are no birds, there is no _sky,_" Tenten cried. "It's been that way for years, and besides that, there's an all out war being fought over there!"

"The environment there may be better than the one here."

She was frightened at just the thought of him leaving. She couldn't quite imagine life without Neji now, maybe a year ago, but certainly not now, as he had become her job, and her job was more or less her life. If he left, she supposed that the only thing left to do was to live with Lee once again. But he was a thousand light years away, and she simply didn't have the money this time to go so far. And besides, she simply couldn't leave Neji now. The only way... the only way was to...

"But a dream is a dream. That's all it is, nothing but a fantasy and a lie," Tenten snivelled. "You'll be_ killed_."

"I won't die," stated Neji in his usual monotone. He came in closer, backs of his fingers pressing against the soft matting of her hair. A sad glimmer of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips and it sent her breath, her chest, aflutter. "I can't die; I technically don't even exist."

She couldn't speak, her being enraptured by a _goddamned _robot _for the love of Pete_ only one factor among quite a few others. Tenten did nothing but look down, spotting her shiny shoes and Neji's delicate, prim feet.

"Oh, Neji," she choked. She shrunk against the wall as Neji placed an elbow close to her head, silvery eyes locked on hers. "Without a mechanic there you won't survive longer than two years. Your batteries don't last any more than that and by the time we find you you'll have decayed and—"

"I will not let you come with me, if that is what you are implying."

"What if I really wanted to go?" Tenten bit her lip. Neji was her _last _friend, if she could call him that. Did robots count?

"My father has imbued me with strength, you said so yourself. It will be difficult fighting me, though I am sure you would put up a good fight. You are strong for a human."

"Hmphf. You do know better," she all but laughed, reaching for her weapon of choice. "You'd be surprised what I can do with a screwdriver. Wanna see?"

"No thank you," Neji said before letting out a cough. "I would suggest catching up with that Lee fellow of yours when I'm no longer here."

His nose touched the left corner of her lip, and there was a literal blue spark that ignited between them. "And when I am gone, I'll dream of you, too," Neji promised.

Tenten pushed the crowbar up her sleeve, slipped her hands through his elbows, and thought about whatever it was a _robot _could dream about. Blue skies and white doves, perhaps? Sure it would have looked appealing in Neji's dreams but it wasn't reality and oh—

—She wasn't simply feeling a bit feverish now. She was on _fire._

"But—" she began. However, Neji broke free of Tenten's grasp before she could try to assuage his radical ideas any further, or at least take a whack at him.

Synthetic sinews flexed against her arms as Neji turned his back to her and leapt into the stars via the closest space-chute, saline solution wetting his cheek.

And Tenten knew that it was the last time she'd see him anywhere other than in her dreams.

* * *

i know i'm like a machine  
but I still have dreams  
i know one day we will...  
_#__3: One Day, Robots Will Cry  
_—**FIN**—

* * *

**Author's Note: **_Completed 22/3/2011._

There's an awful lot of crying and hugging in this anthology. So far it's much angstier than I first intentioned, so at least one of the next entries shall be happy damnit! But I've never actually seen a sci-fi NejiTen story done before, so I decided to do this one myself and as we all know, post-apocalyptic androids can never truly be happy.

I'm actually quite fond of the oneshot, and would like to know what you thought of it especially since it's my first sci-fi _ever_. I've made references to a lot of stuff with this one, so maybe you'll find something here that I've alluded to.

So there you have it, folks! You're beautiful for taking the time to read my stories, you truly are.


	4. When the World is Closing In

_When the World Is Closing In_

—**DEDICATED TO WROATHE—**

Neji had tried to bail them out when the news first came weeks before—that a calamity was to come, and that people would undoubtedly die unless they exited the country in a wave of ships and planes. Not that that would help, because the same sort of thing seemed to be happening all around the globe, and it was obvious the time had come for them to return to the sea.

Nevertheless, Neji was feeling especially lucky and defiant that day, so he picked up the phone and called a flight agency right away.

Unsurprisingly though, all flights were booked in.

He'd tried a couple more companies, but none of them had anything to offer. And it wasn't even a question of whether he could afford it or not. Neji had his overseas uncle to rely on, and Hiashi could surely handle that; he could handle that _and _Lee _and_ Tenten. Heck for all he knew the man had his own private jet and the only thing that was keeping that fine piece of work behind was the fact that everything was covered in water. _Fucking_ water.

Neji kept calling, calling, calling, only stopping once he had his carpet crisscrossed with yellow pages everywhere, with pages torn and every last name ruled out and his hair in a frizzled mess. That was when Neji finally slumped down in defeat and shut his eyes closed.

Apathy—that what he _tried _to feel as he shifted in his bed and opened his eyes to gaze at his blindingly white ceiling.

But he couldn't, because all that filled him was a terrible sadness, a creeping loneliness that gnawed away at him. And he couldn't understand why, because mediation had always worked for him before. Goddamned fate was at it again.

* * *

Before the mega-tsunami hit them there were riots—lots of them. Lee had gotten himself into one (the little youth bomb!) and had somehow convinced both Neji and Tenten to join him in his inane endeavour to hijack an actual plane.

They'd advanced on the clunk of metal, bats and batons in hand as the airline passengers rallied around against the angry mob that had been denied a passage to safety.

Neji remembered shaking his head in disbelief, asking the heavens above why the hell materialistic possessions like _money_ still mattered in situations like those. When you were literally about to be swept away to the ends of earth, wouldn't it be every man for himself? Why for the love of Pete were those buffoon security guards still _doing_ their jobs? Neji's mind jumped from one thought to the other as people begun to resort to violence, and Neji in turn dodged blows and started swinging around his blunt—but deadly—weapon.

He felt like an animal—going so far for a ticket to his own survival—and mighty regretful that Lee had ever talked him into it. After that, his train of thought blurred and twisted, with no end to that vertigo of club against metal and bone and skin. Until, _until_ there was the sound of gunfire overhead, and Neji snapped out of his trance with that painful rip of sound. Neji touched his ear to discover it was wet, possibly with blood.

He headed towards the direction of the metal scream, wanting answers, and spotted a flash of green sprawled out lethargic on the ground. Beside it was a bun-donning silhouette on her knees.

Neji was out of air.

Oxygen. _Oxygen!_

"I am much too youthful to die! If I—if I cannot survive this, I'll run..." Lee had uttered before his eyes rolled back into his head.

Neji had dropped down on his knees too, and held Lee's other hand throughout the ordeal.

But before he was even ready to listen, Lee's sentence stopped short, and a trickle of blood frothed at the corner of his mouth.

* * *

There were no more riots after that.

Well, actually there were. There were plenty, but Neji refused to believe that. Because Lee's blood should have been enough warning for anyone else foolish enough to follow his prime example of idiocy, and _their _example of idiocy for going along with him instead of sitting him down and talking him out of it. Lee was dead, dead, dead, and they were doomed, doomed, doomed, because fate said so, and no matter how many times they'd been told to rise against it there really was no escaping this time.

Lee was the heart of their tender trio, Neji the spine and Tenten the glue that held it together. And when Lee was taken from them—a kick in the stomach, really—the only thing left for them to do was to try not to fall apart, accept that fate, and hope that in another life destiny would be kinder and bring the three back together again.

That, and call up Tenten. Call up Tenten, and possibly spend the night over to practise the art of holding one's breath. One vestige of optimism remained, after all—if they were fortunate and Lady Luck willed it, there was, of course, the slightest chance that they might be washed ashore alive and well some few weeks away. Training their lungs upped that chance, even if by the tiniest fraction of a decimal.

* * *

When they started her personal record clocked in a little over one minute, and they worked her way up from there. The sadist in Neji had delighted in watching her choke, red-faced, as she hit the forty-five second mark, and explode in a blast of air fifteen seconds later.

Every once in a while, Neji felt that his situation was somewhat parallel to one certain eccentric lifesaving instructor they'd met summers ago. It was after they enrolled in a program that was, again, at Lee's insistence. Neji recalled that man—peculiar, "youthful" and lean—his strong rapport with Lee, and the weekends they spent with their boogie boards, crude sandcastles, and sticky sweet ice-cream. And Tenten, "a lotus in the springtime of her youth", with her hair in braids and midriff unsheathed in a green bikini set.

Neji always had a soft spot for Tenten, and during the few weeks leading up to the end of the world he even thought of taking her out at least once before the seas pressed its very own self-destruct button. Boyfriendhood was just one more thing on his super secret apocalyptic to-do list, though Neji would never admit it, not even to himself.

So, Neji being Neji, he swept the thought aside and instead tried to concentrate on the monotonous patterns of cutlasses on her bed. Any possible romance that resulted from those very subconscious feelings would be locked away in a neat nadir of his mind, where it would hopefully stay to collect dust.

And it worked. The closest they ever came to becoming a couple was the time when he stayed up with her through the night with a game of Scrabble until her eyes began to droop and she tumbled over to his side. At a time such as that, Neji had no reason to brush her off, so he let her stay there with her cheek on his shoulder and his hand over her head.

But none of that mattered now. All that _did_ matter was elongating the endurance of her respiratory system. With the time they had to spend throughout that night, Neji knew they would make something out of their last night alive. So Neji set his sights elsewhere, draining cans of Red Bull until he was giddy and managed to up Tenten's personal best to almost two minutes. It was a worthy feat in exchange for the night's sleep.

* * *

When morning came, it came with a distant rumbling that could only belong to the birth of a giant rolling wave. Neji and Tenten climbed to the rooftop to investigate, and things turned out as they feared when they looked on to watch a wall of brine advancing toward them.

Tenten was panting and scared by the time they reached the uppermost platform of the building, and if they'd not been so awkward with touching each other, Neji would have wound his arms right around her right then and there, without a second thought. But he didn't, and instead began, "If you can't keep up—"

"You're not much better than I am!" she defended herself, before he could even finish. Her shoulder quivered against his, and Neji felt absolutely shrilled by the fear that emanated from her touch. "Besides, b-besides—we can't outswim that _thing_."

"Then just hold your breath for as long as you can, like we practised." Neji tore his eyes away from the wave, and rested them on Tenten. "And remember that I'll be waiting for you on the other side. Lee will be too."

Tenten brushed her hand against Neji's. "O-okay, but there's one more favour I wanna ask."

"W-what is it?" Neji ignored his own stutter; it was too late to fuss over such things _now._

Tenten smiled from under her lashes, as if his face was the only glimmer of hope left in the world. "May I hold you?"

Neji was pleasantly surprised (rather, enthralled) by the request, and gave a little nod so that she quickly pressed her nose close to his chest. He could breathe, then, knowing that he had someone to hold throughout the impending deluge. If they were to die anyway, Neji had at least Tenten there by him as he fell to sleep.

Well, that wasn't entirely true, because in fact, there was someone else with them, too. In the moment following Neji's lock around Tenten's shoulders, he felt a gentle, spring breeze whip past them, leafy and youthful—almost a laugh in the wind. Neji was well aware of what and who it was, but before he could even begin to thank _him, _it was too late.

That gust of air was the very last thing Neji could remember before he tasted salt on his tongue.

* * *

may I hold you  
as you fall to sleep  
when the world is closing in  
and you can't breathe  
_#4: When the World Is Closing In_  
—**FIN**—

* * *

**Author's notes: **Dedicated to you, Wroathe! I'm sorry that I posted it so late (though in my defence, I did start it right after the request was made). I wasn't able to incorporate most of the things you've requested of me, including a certain pairing and a certain character (GAI-SENSEI, YOU'RE TOO YOUTHFUL TO INCORPORATE) I'd be willing to gift you with more fics though, as always!

Otherwise, I hope you people enjoyed the angst! I really enjoyed writing this once my mind was set on how to go about it, and I'm equally satisfied with the result. Though I think there's too much angst around this these days. Thusly, the next oneshot will be happy! Or, at least not utterly hopeless.

P.S. May I by Trading Yesterday is a gorgeous song.


	5. Morning Tide

_Morning Tide_

It was _baking _hot.

Sweat soaked him from the base of his neck, all the way down to his spine, and gathered right around the crunches of fabric around his waist. His mouth was as dry as Saharan sand and he was going to _die _if he went without water for much longer, he knew it. And something worse was at work there too, for when he looked around the room containing him, he found that he had no recollection of it whatsoever.

And it wasn't that his mind had been reset to an entirely blank state—as in, he could still recognise that he was in (what had been) a hospital room, he could still calculate one plus two (it equalled three), and was still familiar with words and concepts one could only learn gradually over the course of life. No, what had happened was that his memories, his _personal _memories, had been wiped clean.

To start with, what the heck was it? His name?

Just the thought of it bought dread and fear to him.

His eyes (probably bloodshot) jolted to and fro from the window and the overgrowth of vine stumbling through it, and back to his bedside, which held a broken clock, the remains of what was once perhaps a beautiful bouquet, and a rotting tome on medieval weaponry. They went back down to his hands were he'd pulled out the tubes probed into him, but it only did good to inform him that there was absolutely nothing fresh about the room, save for the slightly sinister climb of green slithering in from the windows.

So that was what the first thing he headed for, though his legs were wobbly from probably months of inertia and it took him a good seven minutes to stumble to the window. It was well worth the wait, because when he peered out, he came across a girl from the outside, on the vine-infested patio, looking in.

And he had to say, she was truly a... a _blossom_ _blooming in the fountain of the springtime of her youth_. She had pink hair, and even from a room so high up he could see that she had a spot of green for eyes, pretty little things that glimmered beautifully under the sunlight. She was the first thing he saw, and _gee_,she was really something. Though amnesiac didn't know where he'd been, he certainly knew where it was he wanted to go.

"Miss?" he called for her, an arm stretching out to try and somehow _connect _with her better. "Can you tell me where we are?"

Her lips crept into an eerie, delicate smile, and instead of expressing an answer with words, she beckoned for him to come over with a pearly, petite hand.

Without any other leads, the amnesiac had no other choice but to follow her. So he limped down from the third floor down to the grove of dense flora where she awaited. And it was strange seeing it, for the trees seemed to curve into the shape of a perfect crouch-size tunnel.

He all but ran to her, and predictably once he arrived within a couple of metres of her, the next thing his sole companion did was crawl into that tunnel he had noted and, seeing it as the only way out, the nameless man followed suit.

She was fast, and had made it to the other side before he could even crouch to edge through the slightly thorny shrubbery. The gentleman in him was relieved to have been able to pass through without awkward repercussions afterward. However, the pervert in him mourned, because it was the only occasion he might have had a peek up her dress without actually appearing lewd. So instead of having white, ghostly fabric swaying teasingly in front of him, the man feasted his eyes on a majestic, serene blue at the other end of the tunnel. After he focused his eyes on nothing but that colour and struggled for a good two minutes, the man scrambled out with barbs about his shirt. He stood from there, ignoring the minor cuts on his arms and immersed himself in the scenery before he caught up with the girl, who had oddly came from that thistle unscathed.

There were rather smallish townhouses scattered along the oceanside, and any man could easily see that they were once grand, magnificent structures. Thirsty-looking weeds grew freely at the bases of these homes in similar fashion to the hospital vines, and it appeared that the members of that slight village had all but deserted their gardens. The oppressive, searing heat present seemed to have peeled back any paint present on the worn houses, and even the tiles of the roofs faded into anodyne, washed out colours beneath the light of the sun. And though he was close to the sea and he could feel the sea-spray beat at his face, taste it, the warm, sticky incalescence muffled the scent of it so that it barely smelled like the sea anymore.

Even the odd bits of wind were a warm breeze at least, and by the time he followed the girl to the very tip of town the nameless man had feared that he would drown in a puddle of his own sweat. Luckily, she stopped there and hoisted her arm up to point up at something before he did melt into nothing more than flap of skin on the gray-bricked road. Curious to see what it was she was directing him to, the man met that general direction to find a frame of something metallic, painfully bright on the roof of one particular house. When he returned his gaze to the mystery girl, in the moment that the glare from the solar panels caused him to blink, she had already disappeared.

He felt his stomach twist into knots—what had she meant? Was he supposed to climb up there and take down the thing or, or simply meet her there? The amnesiac touched the copper doorknob anyway, thinking he could use a drink or two before trying to relocate the girl.

He knocked and not a breath answered.

"Hello?"

He knocked yet again, only to be met with no reply once more. He gave the doorknob a little twist and a push, only to realise that the door had been left unlocked. Acting under some impression that it may have been the girl's house and she had allowed him to come in, the man indeed went in.

The smell of dust and musk then filled his nose, as he entered a synthetic forest of green, a disarray of curtains, books and antiques. The room looked like it had not been touched for years, and the man could only wonder whether or not that was truly the case. When he began to search for some water and the girl, the first thing that specifically caught his eye was an old newspaper that lay flat on the desk, one in which the ink on the paper had faded and the edges of it browned.

He picked it up, and read the headline: ROCK KO'D BY GAARA OF THE DESERT, FALLS INTO COMA. Beneath it was a picture of a shirtless boxer, rather brawny young man with thick brows, big eyes, a bowl haircut and a killer smile. The man almost laughed when he saw it, yet also felt a sadness about him that he couldn't quite explain. The feeling it gave him was oddly familiar. The amnesiac put down the paper despite the fact that he wanted to fold it into quarters and tuck it in his pocket, because whatever he took from that house would not be his, and that would be _stealing. _Though he couldn't conjure a face, Lee knew that someone he loved had told him that stealing was a most dishonourable thing to do.

Next, he happened upon a rusted old gramophone with a vinyl still in place. The man curiously peeked at it, with a shock spotted his reflection in the corroded, golden, metal foxglove, and had to conclude that his own appearance almost perfectly mirrored that of the boy he had just seen in the newspaper. The man fiddled with the gramophone as he thought, _it would make sense._ His coma would explain everything about the strange things happening around him—the ungodly heat, the unbelievably ethereal girl, the deserted town—

He stopped there, because right after he had touched the gramophone's needle, a pretty song began pouring out of the speaker: _Forever young, I want to be forever young. _His previous thoughts were rendered useless, and were forgotten. He became enraptured with the song which resonated with him a melody and lyrics so familiar that he was sure that he had heard it someplace before, and he wept while he played the thing in a loop. And given the fact that he hadn't seen a single person besides the pink-haired girl all day, and also how he'd been driven to a sort of trance by the song, the man did not expect to feel soft bristles of hair would brush up against his ankle and scare the pants off him on the song's eighteenth playback.

"W-w-who's there?" he yelped.

"Woof!" something barked. The man was relieved to hear that it was probably a dog, and that it meant no harm as it tugged playfully at Lee's hospital slacks.

"Kiba Inuzuka at your service," a man, perhaps his owner, called. In the half-light of the room his face was unclear under murky shadows. Even so, Lee could faintly make him out, and this Kiba seemed to raise his hands up as a show of his good nature. "Heard something coming from old Gai's room, and I figured something was up."

_Gai_. Lee felt something buck up in his stomach. Perhaps he was just hungry, at least he hoped so. Lee wiped the sweat from his brow, reinforced the weakness racking up in his knees and tried to form his next sentence. And if he could not bring himself to speak he would inscribe a thousand times his failed speech, and recite them out loud a thousand times as well.

"U-uh... Mister Inuzuka?" he attempted to say. What should he ask? He had a million questions that were waiting to be answered, and he had no idea where to start. Where should he write his thousand verses? "What—well, um...?"

"Just Kiba's fine." There was the light sound against the carpet as he lifted his dog, stepped into the light and scratched him behind the ears. "And this, this is Akamaru."

"W-well, pleasure to meet you, Kiba, Akamaru," said Lee, politely, nervously.

"Dido." Lee could see Kiba now, and he could see that the man had quite a handsome face, vaguely feral features and unkempt brown hair with a hint of morning stubble to match. He had two downward fangs for tattoos, one for each cheek. At first Lee mistook them for drips of red, as they stood out so starkly against white fur when Kiba gently put his pup against him and stroked him lovingly. "Whereabouts you from, anyway? It's rare that we get any travellers around here."

Lee didn't know how to reply and only shook his head. "Since when has it been so hot?"

"Don't tell me... You dunno, bro?"

Lee shook his head.

"There's only one person who'd..." Kiba muttered to himself. Facing Lee, "Jesus Christ, lemme get a closer look at you."

Hands reached out for Lee, took hold of his shoulders and pulled him—with surprising strength—close to Kiba.

"Mother of _shit, _I never thought I'd live to see the day." Kiba hung agape as soon he had caught a proper glimpse of the other man, and shortly thereafter that bruising grip melted into a stifling hug. "_Rock Lee!_ Fuck, and we thought you'd never." The man could feel Kiba's nose through the shoulder of his shirt, and he was suddenly very conscious of the barbs that clung to him. But Kiba didn't seem to mind. "Oh, wait till Neji and Tenten hear about this."

Neji and Tenten? The twisted insides that had slowly been untangling after the mention of the man named Gai came on yet again, more strongly this time. The amnesiac, finally identified "Rock Lee", felt like he should have known those people. Perhaps somewhere, at the back of his mind, he really believed he did.

"Neji and Tenten?"

"You mean you don't remember?" Intelligent Akamaru let out a rather melodramatic shriek.

"No, I cannot say that I do."

"Oh boy."

* * *

Along with his trusted companion, Akamaru, Kiba Inuzuka brought the Rock Lee to the home of Neji and Tenten. Their house had a solar panel just like the one in which Lee had found the newspaper, and sat right a little further down the road to the sea. When they arrived at their door, Lee could feel heavenly cold air caressing his ankles, and Kiba explained that the air-conditioning had been configured by Neji himself to run by solar power.

On their moderate trip down there, Lee had learned _(recapped) _certain details about himself. Kiba tried to refresh his memory by telling him that Lee, Neji, Tenten all at one time met at the same dojo almost two decades ago. When Lee lied a little about remembering absolutely nothing at all, Kiba dropped the subject and moved onto the next, even though Lee _had _felt the slightest tingle when Kiba had said it. Lee let him continue to tell him more about Neji.

He was a black belt of many things, a perfectionist, a bit of a grump, too smart for his own good, a passive guy, a loyal husband and reliable friend. The man lived in the apartment next door to Kiba's with his wife. But when Lee walked in the door into the air conditioned room, he discovered that she hardly seemed like Neji's wife. He never called her _honey_ or _darling_ or anything of the sort, and never kissed her in Lee's presence. The only thing that confirmed their marriage were the thin silver bands that were placed on both their fingers, and his eyes—his eyes that matched the colour of their rings—and the way he looked at her with them. Though without that context in mind, one could hardly guess the two were _married_.

Kiba had run out of time to talk about Tenten by the time they arrived, though when they did he hardly needed to.

She was wearing an oriental-styled singlet and shorts. Her hair was tied up in buns, an odd and probably inconvenient hairstyle. It was impractical, though she did look ever so youthful in them, or rather, a little pale, for when she first laid eyes on Lee she was as white as a sheet, and a little (a lot) giddy.

"Lee!" she'd called. Lee could see Neji with his back against the wall wince slightly, and suddenly the scene seemed all too familiar to him. Tenten leapt quite enthusiastically into Lee's arms, while he could only jerk back in response.

"You're awake, oh god, we've missed you," she babbled, turning wistfully to Neji, "It's been seven—or was it eight?—long years. My, my, time does fly!"

Lee blinked with confusion. "Awake? S-seven_... Eight _years?"

Tenten loosened, her hands went slack on his arms, and her eyes drooped. She rubbed her brows with one hand, and made a gesture or two towards Neji which had him fumbling with the cabinet in no time. "You've probably noticed how hot it's been lately."

"Yes," Lee said simply. "If it is not too troublesome a task, could I ask anyone for..."

Kiba, who had previously been standing in the doorway, helped himself to a chair while Tenten sat down too. Lee thought it would be impolite to be the only one unseated without an excuse, and so made sure that he was seated as soon as possible.

"It's been like this for years now. First we thought the scientists were insane, so we didn't listen until it started happening real fast. The summers got hotter and hotter, and pretty soon it—it was just like right now, soaking hot, day after day, heatwave after heatwave," Kiba explained.

Neji faced his wife and the two guests, with four cups of unidentified beverages on a tray. He placed a cup in front of each person and acquired a spot in the last remaining seat himself. Without a suggestion or a correction, he scolded Kiba with, "Well, that was vague of you, Inuzuka."

"_Sorry_." Kiba shrugged, grabbed his drink with and swallowed with gusto. He tried his hardest not to scream once it burned his tongue but screamed anyway and chilled Lee to the bone. Still, none but Lee seemed to care, and when he reached out to try and help him even Akamaru seemed to have an offhanded look.

"Kiba! Are you alright?" he cried.

"Ith okay!" Kiba lisped back, opening his mouth and hung his tongue out to cool, "Fuck, id de fird time dis week."

Lee thought he caught Neji rolling his eyes while he reached for the fridge and chucked Kiba two ice cubes. Neji mouthed, "He's fine", and Lee could only nod awkwardly. Tenten in the meanwhile, seemed to be thoroughly troubled from something other than Kiba's injury. She then took a breath after she sipped her cup of chrysanthemum tea, and continued Kiba's little tale. "It rains, never enough though. They all—well; most of them in this town—they flew to the poles thinking it'd be cooler. But the ice caps began melting faster than ever and..."

"Bafic'ly, we're all gonna die," Kiba interjected casually with his arms behind his head.

Neji's brows, which had been a rather subtle slant a second ago furrowed more violently, and he softly rapped a fist on the table. "We certainly are _not _going to die. I'll make sure of that, even if I have to cryogenically freeze us all through the next ten ice ages."

Tenten looked at her husband with a smile that completely took Lee off guard because it carried so many strong emotions in one go—amusement, endearment, languor, melancholy, and trust. She said, "I know you would, Neji."

Neji crossed his arms, hmphfed righteously, and there was amazingly a trace of a real grin behind that smirk of his. And what a smirk! Lee could almost find himself remembering it lifetimes ago. Darn it, Lee thought to himself. If he could not recall his past by the end of the week he would have to run twenty-five laps across the beach.

"But that isn't going to hold off the apocalypse any longer than it's going to take us all to melt alive or run out of food to eat."

Neji did not answer to her statement and instead, addressing Lee, he said, "I think it's time for me to show you where you'll be staying. Or perhaps, you'd like to greet Hinata and Shino?"

Lee grew even more confused. Who were these people? They had names as familiar as a timeworn boot yet as foreign as a faraway third cousin he never knew he had. "Shino? Hinata? Pardon me, but who are they?"

Neji scowled, Tenten cringed and Kiba clapped his hand over his face.

* * *

Kiba was then stuck with an enraged Tenten trying to explain to her why he hadn't told her earlier of Lee's affliction, and Neji, looking quite heartbroken, walked him back to the room where in which he was supposed to stay.

Neji had taken him right back to the first solar panelled house, climbed onto the roof, with Lee's help made a few modifications and hey presto, five hours later there was suddenly electricity all around. Neji showed Lee how to operate the shower, explained to him where everything was, added some odd features about some of the furniture and left with remarks. One was about that room, how it had belonged to a man named Gai, and the second regarded his memory. Neji made sure that Lee agreed to at least _try _to recover his memory, and when he agreed, the men shook hands.

"Stay green, Whirlwind," was the last thing he'd said before leaving, and the phrase had him doubling up on his own confusion. It was almost like an echo, yet another forgotten phrase that was once a glorious war-cry in some other life.

* * *

In the following morning, and the many mornings that Lee experienced after that, he learnt that the whole five villagers lived off of the instant noodle supply of a funny guy who used to live around town (he had a _lot _of instant ramen), bits of canned food and plenty of scavenged snacks from local towns and the supermarkets in them. He also learned quickly that it was everybody's job to forage through scrap and junk to ensure the supply stayed steady and no one starved. It was a good, no-brainer policy, and with a fifth man on the job it became even easier on the group to carry it out.

Learning his past, however, was all the more difficult. Lee did end up running the twenty-five laps in the sizzling heat, and with time his punishments began to become even crueller. Lee fainted once, and luckily for him, the whole crew was there to nurse him back to health and upbraid him a little while after. Tenten told him a little more each day, and after what seemed like a month he was to know only half of the story. Even then, little of it resonated with Lee. Lee often found characters to root for in this story—like his very own coach, Gai, though he only ever viewed the story as a third-person audience to an exciting book. Sure, he would sometimes phase out and have snapshots of a singular, elusive moment, but he never managed to squeeze much information out of them. He often didn't feel what he should have felt and Neji and Tenten were always there to tell that there was no pressure to do so at all.

When he wasn't up in the Hyuuga apartment and being taught history lessons, Lee was out for walks with Kiba, flower pressing with Hinata, or bug hunting with Shino. He always listened to the stories that they had to tell, but only when they wanted to tell them. It turned out that Kiba had never known Lee _well_, not directly, though he had conversed with him an odd few times before the coma and heard (an approximation of) thousands of anecdotes from Tenten and Neji about him. It took him a couple more weeks for Lee to realise that Kiba was head over heels in love with Hinata, and an extra week to find out the sweet girl was a cousin of Neji's. And while Shino was a tough nut to crack at first, with the time Lee had spent sharing and conversing with him sometimes the speechless man would show him a hint of a smile and draw him a butterfly in the sand.

Though Lee knew little about the exodus that the world had undertaken while he had been asleep, his four fellow villagers made enough references to have Lee understand the most basic principle of it all. It was a trendy thing to fly to one of the poles, and the popular choice compared to staying where you were. However, from what he gathered there were actually a few companies that had decided to stay, active supermarkets, travelling aid volunteers, mailmen and other locals that congregated every odd few months. There was even an active radio station not far off their little seaside town, and Lee—as he was sure everyone else—was mighty glad the guys over there had a decent taste in music. It was an idyllic time and through the heat the attitudes of those who stayed back were in contrast chilled and carefree.

There never seemed to be an apocalypse as peaceful as this. How could one name a scenario that could be spent with you slowly growing old and dehydrated by a seaside town without a job to bother you, spending each day beachcombing and each night with your best friends—the whole village—at a dinner table with good food? It seemed to last until forever, and Lee wouldn't mind dying out there with the others as little old white-haired men and women.

And the pink haired girl reappeared now and then, sometimes on the beach with her eyes cast over the ocean, others obscured on the very borders of Lee's field of vision. There was something common shared between those sightings, for each of them came without words and without contact. While Lee hated to doubt himself, he was not sure if she was real or just a figment of a lost memory anymore, for she was as elusive as a cricket chirping behind a blade of grass, like youth slipping away under the swelter of a summer sun.

Sometimes Lee caught himself catching leaves, if only because she might fall in love with him if she did. A magic trick, a superstitious love charm—whatever it was—Lee always felt that it wasn't the first time he'd done it.

* * *

Up until the eve of the Hyuuga's fourth anniversary, Lee had known his story off by heart. He was a boxer, one of the main characters. He was an auspicious young lightweight, and Gai was his encouraging, lovable coach. Like any other story, it had its dips into despair, small accomplishments, trivial facts, petty arguments colourful characters and conflict, but the gist of it was that Lee had himself run into a match distracted, guns blazing and in his preoccupied distractedness was knocked out. It was a spectacular defeat where half an hour later he was rushed to the hospital and discovered to have lapsed into a coma.

In the years that followed there were many tears, most noticeably from Gai. Each successive year the average temperature rose up to as high as a whole degree, and though the international governments managed to suppress panic for the first couple of years, many (but not all) families from all over the world decided to emigrate to colder climates in fear for the worst. And it was worse now, because the icecaps in the two poles were melting quicker than ever. That was all Lee was to be told for the moment, though was dying to know what happened to those characters while he had been comatose. He'd love to hear that that lovable Gai was up somewhere cool with a khaki shirt on, drinking from some funky cocktail through an umbrella straw and that that Sakura girl was somewhere she liked to be, in a pretty dress and under the safety of a friend's arms. However, Tenten had given him a stern, broken look and told him she didn't think she was ready to tell him just yet. Then Lee bobbed up and down on his chair, he was so impatient!

"Alright fine, but this has been killing me for ages," Lee said, changing the subject, "Is there a pink-haired girl that lives around here?"

"T-there's no pink haired girl around here," Tenten then replied, nervously. "It's just us five, remember?"

"Maybe she's a refuge and too shy to come up to us. She must be awfully lonely."

Tenten didn't seem to know how to reply, and she didn't have to. It was then that in the nick of time, the door creaked open and Neji returned home with a scowl across his face and a can of ham in hand. His first priority upon entering the door was to chuck the food to Lee. His second was to take off most of what he was wearing; his long black hair was slick with sweat, shirt almost entirely soaked with the stuff, too. Tenten cast a shy look his way when her sinewy husband peeled it over his head, went to the sink then ran water over his eyes and through his hair.

"Something's up," Tenten predicted.

Neji made a grunt that signified _yes_, gracefully slumped on a chair and in a rare show of tiredness rested his cheek on his palm. His expression was a mix of emotions—concern, agitation, fury, disappointment and perhaps a hint of gladness. Lee always found it slightly difficult to read the two, as this fusion of emotion was often displayed by Tenten as well, so it was only natural for Lee to wonder if it was a practised thing. Perhaps they communicated through their eyes and their glances; they used their words rather sparingly.

"Hinata's run off," Neji said, rather calmly, although his agitated brows betrayed the serenity of his voice.

Tenten's eyes made a subtle motion, though she looked mostly expectant of that very fact. "What ever happened?"

"Kiba finally decided to tell her how he felt." Neji took the can from Tenten and pulled it open. It was then that Lee decided that he felt uncomfortable in that room.

"And you've been out all this time searching for her, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me about this earlier?"

"I thought we'd—" Neji stopped there.

Lee exclaimed, "Oh, that's horrible! We have to go and find her."

Tenten placed her hand on Lee's and nodded. "Lee's right, we need to go find her."

Neji made another grunt of approval, picked out another t-shirt hanging behind the door and led the way out. Tenten took Lee around the arm, painfully motherly with the way her arm craned around him like the neck of a swan, and walked them out.

* * *

They found her in the abandoned shed on the other side of the beach, and by the time they had arrived Kiba had already been able to wrap his damp arms around Hinata's neck. She wept into his chest, and Akamaru whined by her feet. Shino was leaning against the outside of the fence, not wanting to intrude on their budding romance, and soon all of the three newcomers had taken up the idea and were doing the very same.

Under normal circumstances Kiba would throw his coat over her shoulders, take her home, give her a bite to eat and offer her a hot bath. But since the earth was slowly becoming a boiling frying pan, the _situation_ was an entirely different matter from the norm. So instead, Kiba promised to look away if she wished to take off any of her clothes (the comment of which earned a well-deserved threat and a fist from her cousin) and eventually took her home. He could still fulfil the request for cinnamon. Instead of the hot bath, however, Hinata took a cold shower as Kiba sulked with Akamaru in the living room.

There Kiba played tug-of-war with Akamaru and a sturdy stick of jerky, and offered Shino a chance to stay as he did so. But he had shaken his head and left for his own apartment downstairs, just in case Kiba and Hinata "needed the time alone". Though Kiba then tried to convince him to stay, shady Shino ultimately left quietly with Akamaru under his arm and best wishes for Kiba. And while Kiba was suddenly nervous without his best buddies by his side and Hinata _naked_ in his shower, he sighed and acknowledged that it was the only way he'd ever hope to have children in his lifetime.

* * *

After Neji had made sure his cousin was in good hands, Lee retreated to the Hyuuga's home to hopefully collect some supper and say goodnight.

Since it had been a particularly taxing night on all of them, Tenten reached for the ice cubes, sliced a lemon, brought out the fancy glasses, funky straws, some orange juice, a bit of alcohol, and prepared them a couple of makeshift cocktails. Lee took particular notice as to how his drink seemed to contain no trace of alcohol. After the drinks were finished, Tenten instructed her husband to make a trip next door and he came back he bore news that Hinata was _still _in the shower.

Tenten and Lee laughed, and Neji surely noticed neither of them had sipped their drinks since he was gone. He looked sort of grateful for that, and it showed through the smirk he always put up when he was too embarrassed to smile.

Now that he was back, Tenten was able to raise her glass and make a toast, "I know our anniversary's tomorrow, but like old Gai used to say, 'youth is eternal but life is short!'"

"Gai dedicated his life to your success as an athlete. You were like a son to him," continued Neji. "And though he is with us no longer, I say he deserves very drop of our toast. To Gai."

"To... Gai." Lee felt something rise up in his chest, and decided to add his own part, "To you two, as well. Four years of marriage is a most wondrous, youthful achievement indeed!"

Tenten thinned her lips, nodded, and clinked her glass against Neji's. "And here's to Hinata and Kiba!"

It was then that Neji glared at her, darkly behind his bangs, and she laughed at him. After Tenten had pushed her glass against Neji's, Neji's against Lee's and Lee's against Tenten's, they each simultaneously swallowed the drinks. They tasted like shit, but did fare slightly better for their tongues than filtered seawater.

"Ah, I wish I were there," Lee sighed after he'd taken a good long sip.

"Where?" said Neji.

"At your wedding," said Lee. "I am sure that it would have been the most splendid wedding I ever saw."

"Y-yeah," Tenten mumbled. "We do, too. We wish you were there, I mean but—"

"It was a wedding hardly worth attending." Neji sipped his drink, and visibly cringed at the crude aftertaste. He looked at Tenten and she smiled weakly at him as if quell him of some ancient frustration, most probably in accordance with the wedding.

Lee had envisioned a beautiful dress on Tenten, Neji in a tuxedo suit, flowers everywhere; adorable flower children, wise-cracking groomsmen, pretty bridesmaids, the proud maid of honour, the jubilant best man, great champagne, a gigantic wedding cake, fun games, laughter, a pudgy celebrant, intricate decor and the whole shebang, but then Lee heard Neji's account of it.

He heard of how the guest count totalled to a mere six attendants—Neji's two cousins; Hinata and Hanabi, Hinata's closest two friends; Kiba and Shino, his uncle, and old Gai. It wasn't even quite a wedding, because Neji and Tenten had quietly registered their marriage a little while before the actual "wedding", which was more like a failed, awkward dinner spent picking at half-thawed peas and playing pass-the-parcel and monopoly until it was late enough that the entourage would leave the newlyweds alone to their solitude. Neji made some remark about how Tenten deserved better, and it was one of the few times Lee heard him say something that was genuinely caring.

Tenten cut in then, and talked about how it was more than good enough, about how she enjoyed the modesty of it all, the quietness, the lack of a million different files (though she would not have minded that), even the over-creamed cake they had bought, his ring (he thought was "not enough", she thought was beautiful), how kind their guests were, the food they had cooked themselves, the little prizes they won inside those scrunches of newspaper, and his kisses that followed after the guests had left.

Neji seemed to _blush_ at the last bit, and then coughed to try and hide his embarrassment. She was probably about to tell him how she loved him, but before she did Tenten sighed—maybe in reminiscence—and blinked back something—perhaps a smidgen of dust in her eye—before she stood to place her glass into the sink. She was wobbly on her feet and then, in one of the rare moments where he actually _moved _to touch his wife, Neji rushed out and put his hands under her arms to catch her if she swooned. He gave Lee a sort of stern look. "If you'll excuse us."

Lee could see through the crack of the door, her slender hands curled into quivering fists against his chest, and he could only cast his eyes on his floorboard, twist his fingers up into each other and think, _it's something that I said._

* * *

Without looking back, Lee left for home with his hands in his pockets. There was no more blaming the heat.

It made him so very angry that he couldn't remember a man as seemingly important as this Gai. Gai, Gai, Gai. He seemed like such a nice guy while he listened to the stories and Lee was infuriated that he could forget such a mentor that had been so very good to him. Had he died? Neji's statement was unclear, even if anyone other than Lee seemed to have understood what the message meant. Or rather, cease to try and think of it any differently. Gai just seemed like the type of person who was invincible—forever young, unable to simply disappear, and Lee couldn't believe what he had just heard, couldn't believe he had forgotten this man who seemed like a father to him.

Even worse than his forgetting of this—this Gai, his inability to conjure up just one stupid memory had him acting the fool around the only friends he had left and even made them _cry_. Why was—why couldn't he have just kept his mouth shut? The wedding was obviously a touchy subject for them. He shouldn't have asked.

Lee kicked small pebbles in his path all the way up to his own home, and when he got there he ignored how sweaty he was (nothing new) and crashed onto his bed with every intention of falling asleep. He lay there for about an hour, and just as he began to seep into sleep he saw the girl again. _That _girl, the one with the pink hair.

And he tried to ignore it, he really did. She tried to write her out as a depraved fantasy, irrelevant and nonexistent. Yet, she appeared so repeatedly that Lee was forced to remember that it was _Sakura_, Sakura from the stories. Sakura, Sasuke's ex-girlfriend and Lee's... Lee's eternal love.

Had her long hair not obscured the features of her face in the photos, had it been short back then, had the newspaper's colour not washed out, Lee would have recognised her anywhere. He would have unlocked the secret to his past earlier, and spared poor Tenten her discomfort. It must have been awful seeing him in that bed and not being able to anything about it. And it wasn't that Lee thought he deserved her and Neji's friendship or anything, but the fact of the matter was that he had survived for so long in the hospital. It would be impossible without aid, so they must have walked the distance up there through the blistering heat, set up some form of electricity and take intensive care of him, _every_ day, for years. And he had never even thanked them for that.

Once Lee had realised this, Sakura appeared to him yet again, and more vividly this time. She looked in that moonlit night more like an apparition than ever before, and she seemed to beckon him to come to her as she drifted inhumanly quickly to the shore.

Lee barely got dressed in his clothes, and came sprinting down to the shore with one blue sock and one red. In that moment he'd thought of nothing else but meeting her, his eternal love.

He ran and he ran, and all the while imagined her prim feet kissing the water as she drew pictures in the sand with her toes while she waited for him.

When he skidded to a stop she was there, in all her beauty, without a word.

"Sakura!" he yelled, reaching for her. Manly tears brimmed at the rims of his eyes. "Sakura! I—"

"Thank you," she said simply in reply. Her smile was sweeter than anything, and her voice was unexpectedly ordinary after years of absence, but Lee liked it. It suggested she was more earthly than he had once thought, and therefore tangible. Lee stepped forward to be closer to her and then, something happened that defied all logic. Starting from her bright green eyes, the girl dissolved into sea foam and landed in the water with a quaint little _plop._

In the spot where she had faded into the ocean, the water came up in an inverted wave and into the sky, weaved the clouds around it together. Lee was still in too much shock to respond just yet, but as he stood there, frozen, water began to tap each of his cheeks. A cool breeze made its way past him. It was relief and wonder all together, and Lee felt himself cry himself into a feverish dream.

* * *

He was nineteen, rippling with muscles, confident and content with his life, with his teacher and his friends. Or so he thought. He had been the lightweight underdog all along, and he was fresh from battle with the prestigious Uchiha Sasuke. There were lights all around, the crowd cheered for him and he felt hot—sort of like the heat they experienced now, except that it was a pumped rush of blood rather than a muggy, sluggish humidity.

He had won the previous match, but he had seen him take the girl. Lee had even seen her turn back to him to look at him with her green eyes and wave a little wave. She smiled at him, and it drove Lee insane with jealousy and passion and something else he'd never even known. Wasn't defeating Sasuke Uchiha enough for her to notice him?

Now, Rock Lee was up against Gaara of the Desert. His opponent's hair was blood red, wore a thick eyeliner (was that even permitted in the rules?) and lacked eyebrows, much unlike himself. Rock Lee had two copious, beautiful bushes for brows, and he was confident of them. He had fabulous eyebrows, Gai had told him himself.

Lee looked over to the corner to see Gai with his thumb out and pearly white teeth beaming at him. Lee couldn't let him down. The championship came down to that very match, and Lee couldn't let Gai down. Gai who believed in him from the very start, who'd helped him up to where he was now.

Out there in the audience somewhere sat his other eternal rival. Neji Hyuuga was amongst that gargantuan crowd, and Lee would prove him wrong once and for all. He always lectured the role of fate in their lives, but Lee had always hoped that with Tenten's help they'd change that. So they had made a bet that if he won the tournament she'd have to 'fess up to ole Neji and tell him how she felt. She had to, nothing worked up Lee more than a romance unconsummated.

Lee had begun at the very bottom of the rung and worked his way up, and Neji never thought he would make it this far. _He _hadn't believed that he would have made it that far. But he wanted to make Gai proud. Prove Neji wrong. Impress Sakura. Convince Tenten she and Neji were made for each other. Make everyone happy. Secure his own success. Become the world's finest boxer. And most importantly, pursue his own happiness.

This was his one chance, and he screwed it up in the end. The pressure from the previous fight weighed down on his shoulders. Lee felt dizzy, and sick with envy (a feeling he was almost never associated with). Lee felt himself fall heavy in the limbs, legs like lead for a second and arms like useless twigs. Gaara would snap them easily.

His vision became blurrier with each successive blow. He tasted blood and salt, and soon Lee couldn't even put up a fight. His arms were too broken to lift for a block. His head hurt. He shouldn't have drunken that funky glass of lemonade. Thoughts passed as briefly as the flashes of his youthful life. Lee felt a stabbing pain in his neck, and before long he was out like a light.

Lee was then forced to watch them fly into the ring around his pulpy body as if in a faded film. Lee withheld a scream in response to his bloody, bruised shell. Soon he was void of all consciousness.

* * *

Covered by the weight of his eyelids, Lee could no longer see the faces of the voices he heard. They were ambient, echoing voices, though recognisable all the same. A million sentences rushed by his comatose self. Those who talked to them seemed years apart in their deliveries, and yet at they seemed to have all come to him at the very same time.

"Lee, you did great. You make your old coach proud," Gai had told him, probably after the match.

"It was Uchiha, that weasel who sabotaged you. Lee, you have my word that justice will indeed be served."

Maybe on the same day, Neji had visited too. "And I was wrong, Lee, so very erroneous when I first judged you. Who was I to tell you the things I told you? Just a conceited child. I had my misconceptions on fate, and because of you I know now that we, all of us, can seize our own destinies. I thank you for that, Lee, and I'm... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"At least I won't have to hear your youth lectures in that chipmunk tune of yours anymore. Even if I do I miss how annoying you were. Your enthusiasm. That thirst for life. Neji won't tell you this, but I know he misses you too. Come back and we'll take you to that curry takeaway you life so much. Curry of Life was your favourite, wasn't it? It'll be my treat. You deserve it, Lee. You just have to wake up. If you can beat Sasuke in a fight you can do this, I know you can. Oh, Lee."

Through the quality of the high, feminine voice alone, Lee knew it was Tenten. She'd then visited him some time later, and informed him that she and Neji were finally going out.

Then came Sakura. She had said, "Hi? Lee? It's Sakura. I brought you some daffodils and I hope you get better quick. How can I even begin to—I broke up with that bastard, if you wanted to know. I'm free next Saturday, so if it'll help you get up and running how about I ask you on a date? I asked Tenten and she told me you liked this place called the Curry of Life. So be there at eight. It's rude to stand up a girl, alright?"

Lee was overwhelmed with joy after he'd heard it. However, after that, the voices became much vaguer. He'd heard someone unidentifiable mutter, _"_...Poor Sakura. I heard she—" and Lee wanted to cover his ears, but he had no arms and he had no hands and he had no body to cover them with. He was then told in gruesome detail of Sakura's death, and no matter how hard he wanted to refuse it, the descriptions stayed.

Nothing seemed to make sense anymore after that. Lee had only paid attention to how his beloved Maito Gai died of heartbreak (or something worse), all that concerned Neji and Tenten's love life (quite the soulful soliloquies, they were) and eventual marriage, and educated himself on how the world had gradually ended, heard the panic inside everyone's voices. Besides keeping an ear out for those, he refused to listen anymore.

And then there was silence, and Lee heard the last thing he was to be told in his dream, and it was definitely Tenten speaking: "They're evacuating more than half the hospital, Lee. Oh god, the world's ending. I wish Gai was here."

* * *

Lee woke with a start. His eyes opened to greet the beating waves, and his ears to the rush of the morning tide and from what he could hear, some rain too. It was much like the time he awoke in the hospital; he felt that same feeling of heat, of a life anew. Except this time that heat had come from within, as the air had become cooler with the rain. Lee had also experienced second awakening, aside from that of the biological ode to mornings. He had finally regained his memory.

And then he felt so stupid—his history, the truth, his memories—they had been available to him all that time. When he thought harder on it was somewhat true that before he'd seen Tenten, one of his best friends, in such a state of distress, he'd never tried enough. He didn't seek the treasures in the very room he lived in, as he realised now was in fact, the _late _Gai's room. The fact that he was now dearly departed shook Lee to the bone, but when he reached for tears it seemed that the duration of the night had left him with none. And Neji and Tenten! Now, he'd ruined their fourth anniversary with his stupid remarks. He would have to apologise, and of course, with his regained youth, follow up with the classic Enlightenment of Youth and then tell them how he remembered now and missed them so.

When he arrived at their apartment, he wished he hadn't done so. Their door was unlocked, and the air conditioning seemingly broken. Beyond their kitchen chairs, Lee carefully treaded, as he began to hear a soft, strange singing of sounds coming out of the couple's bedroom. They were a bit hushed through the onset of rain, so whatever was there failed to hear him, either. In his naivety and distance, Lee thought it might be a small lost cat, or something of the like, so he passed the door to catch a glimpse of something he should not have had the privilege to see.

There they were, legs locked in place and mouths open in a pair of sensuous little rings. Both their spines quivered with each breath. Their flesh shimmered with sweat and perhaps—in the clammy curvatures in which Lee's eyes could not reach—something else. Neji's grunts were short and quiet, and Tenten's _ahs_ muffled remnants of a gasp. It seemed natural to them that they should sound so hushed, however, and that made the small displays of grand exultation sound like a mini orchestra all in itself. Though they were soft, the sounds they vocalised were distinctively masculine and feminine, and in a way harmonised and completed each other.

It was not a song Lee should not have been hearing just yet, and certainly a song that belonged only to them. He felt that it meant wasn't for him to listen, so quietly slid by the couple, unnoticed, and out their door to fetch buckets for the rainwater.

But when he turned around he bumped into something solid, and yelled, only to find Kiba and Hinata with their hands linked and Akamaru harmlessly lounging on Shino's arms. Lee nervously whipped back to face the other couple, and they were red-faced and mortified.

Lee uttered some semblance of an apology for his previous night's insolence, and Tenten leapt for a sheet and said, "What in the hell for!"

"You mean you forgive me for my insensitive comments last night, oh youthful blossom?"

"Whatever the heck it was, of course I do!" she screamed. "But _never _for this!"

Neji had dived behind their bed, shielding his unexpected guests' eyes at all costs. "Lee, you imbecile!"

Kiba, Hinata and even Shino laughed (one was a hyena's cackle, the other a nervous giggle and the last an amused chuckle) as they backed away three generous paces.

With happy tears still in his eyes, Lee in the meanwhile made it for the door. Tenten had frantically finished searching for something to cover herself with and had begun throwing things at him. Lee, some decades ago, had been unfortunately introduced to Tenten's deadly aim and lived to tell the tale the first time around. He was almost sure that he wasn't to survive the second.

* * *

by the shore i'll be waiting for you  
morning tide i'll be waiting for you  
though i see you on the coastline in time  
it's something to think about  
_#5: Morning Tide  
_—**FIN**—

* * *

**Author's note**: Today's song is _Morning Tide_ performed by _The Little Ones_.

I wrote the first 8K in two weeks a month or more ago, and the final draft was completed on the 5th of June, 2011. Clearly I lack the competence to write Lee in character but hey, I had fun (and an equal amount of difficulty) with this oneshot, and though it's probably too ambitious for its own good, I like how it turned out. I didn't go for scientific accuracy at all, by the way. You can still feel free to inform me of errors, if you'd like.

AND GUESS WHAT THE NEXT CHAPTER WILL FEATURE ZOMBIES. But might not be posted in a while.


	6. At the Beginning

_At the Beginning_

The first trace of it came from an insignificant woman living near the borders of Estonia. Her husband died not long after the couple had celebrated their twentieth anniversary, and up until then she had spent her whole life in that obscure village of hers with nothing but her three daughters to prove that she ever lived. But a short month later, everyone knew about the lady, her three children, her husband's mysterious reincarnation and their grotesque transformation into the living dead.

Unfortunately, no one could figure out why _it_ happened. Some guessed, and some came close to finding answers. But the further the scientists researched and theorised, the whiter hairs around the world grew. The path to the answer was without clarity, and the whole labyrinthine affair proved that each new discovery could only bring with it an increasingly confused and disturbed public.

And when there were no answers, no cure was made for the poor family who spent the infinity of their days rotting away. Evidently, the authorities took much too long to shoot them in the head, because within weeks people like the Estonian woman were not so few and far between any more. The zombies spread like goddamn wildfire. They dominated hospitals, quarantine inspection, and gathered in hordes of lethargic decay.

What people didn't know was that all of it was just as bad as no one dared to believe. As predicted by popular culture, the zombies fed on human brains. If they were a tad peckish, they might have nibbled on an arm and sucked away the marrow in the bone. The concept was horrifying in theory, and even more terrifying in practice. Governments around the world built massive steel shelters, evacuated the millions that lived in cities, distributing zombie survival pamphlets and suicide kits while the world burned.

Then half a year later, the world went to shit. No one knew where the shelters were, or if the people in them were still alive. Anarchy had become a collective lifestyle in all but name and the empty cities decayed just like the undead did.

A young man by the name of Hyuuga Neji lived in one such city.

Neji had always been a bit of a loner, but even people like him needed human company once in a while. He could only read his pamphlets so many times before the stylised cartoons depicting crowbars and cerebrums faded from overuse. He grew tired of spending his timeless, idyll days barricading his unit and collecting rainwater from the rooftop of his home, and as time wore on he became ever the more lonely and afraid.

By night Neji slept on the highest storey of his booby-trapped skyscraper. By day, he wandered the streets, and noted the decrepit buildings littered left and right, how the volume of people he encountered grew smaller every day. At first he had neighbours, but a few weeks later there were maybe a few strangers he'd see in one day. Days became weeks, and as time went by, Neji became well aware that he had not seen another person for months.

Under a meadow of stars, Neji often wondered if he really was the only person left in the world. Every night as he prepared to sleep, Neji would listen to his static radio for any sign of another human being, and very rarely picked up signals that came to him in fuzzy, looped messages. And sometimes, _sometimes_ he would hear a faint ghost of a voice, a voice that would never materialise into a decipherable word.

Not until now.

It was almost six in the morning and Neji was ready for the day ahead. He had his day all planned out on a map in his mind—first breakfast, then salvaging, a rationed lunch afterwards, target practice, more salvaging, dinner, zombie study and finally, sleep.

All that changed, however, when Neji flicked his radio on.

As soon as he heard that wisp of a voice, Neji shot up, almost trampling over his poor breakfast and redundant television as he put his speakers against his ears. Even if there were a couple of casualties that came tumbling off his shelves, his excitement was hardly an over-reaction.

"_Hello. Hello?"_ bellowed the voice, a bit fuzzy but definitely there.

"Yes! _Yes, _I can hear you," Neji muttered as he tuned his radio and listened closely. Oh, how wonderful it was to hear a human voice. There was chatter and a couple of clunks in the background of the audio.

The speaker on the radio cleared his throat.

"_Um... To anyone out there can hear this, head as far west as you can! Up on Greenleaf Beach we've got dozens more survivors and heaps of food and water. We're fortifying near the lighthouse right now, and we need as many people we can get to help us. You should be able to see the lighthouse from the other side of the beach. Our light'll be turned on, so use that to find us. And never stop believing, 'cause you aren't alone. We're gonna get the world on back track and those zombies won't know what hit 'em, believe it!_

There was a clang in the background as the message came to a close. _"—Argh, mmphf, Sasuke, that tickles!_"

Neji heard laughter before the radio went static once again.

* * *

Neji wasn't taking his chances. He got his trolley and began to pack—the radio, food, water, pamphlets, a machete, medicine, some guns, petrol, a map, and whatever else he could find that he deemed useful, and wrapped it all up in a thick blanket and some rope to keep his inventory intact. Neji was relieved that he had spent all those days salvaging for supplies as he rushed around his home like a maniac.

Greenleaf was located on the tip of the westernmost slip of land in the country. He had taken regular trips to the beach as a child, so it would not be too hard for him to find it now.

Neji tried to calculate the route in his head while he added the finishing touches to his luggage. He was sweaty when he slung his best rifle over his shoulder and rushed out with his trolley in tow.

He had to hurry now. Dawn was almost here, and he wanted to be as close to Greenleaf as he could before the day was done.

He all but leapt down the stairs with his trolley skidding behind him. Neji was impatient when he kicked down the barricade guarding his unit and stormed out to greet the sunshine. He swept his eyes across the field and, after finding it safe to pass, pushed his trolley into his big blue van before he climbed behind the wheel, shoved his key into the ignition and drove off into the horizon, easy as he made his way through the rubble and ruin.

A CD he had acquired years ago was still in his player and began to play as soon as his car booted up. And without realising it, Neji had begun to hum to the familiar tunes while the trinkets suspended from his rearview mirror swayed back and forth to the melody.

* * *

After two days without nearly enough sleep, Neji was on his way to meeting someone who was to be very special to him in the adventure that would ensue.

Driving past some more ruins, Neji had seen some smoke in the distance before he decided to investigate the curious scene. As far as he knew, zombies did not possess the gift of logical thought, so a fire probably meant that there must have been people around. And although it may or may not have been in his best interest to do so, if there were people around there would also be supplies and support nearby.

He was right, of course. After he followed the smoke to its source, he found a collapsed, skeletal shelter, empty bullet shells surrounding it and a living, breathing girl buried underneath all the rubble. And best of all she wasn't zombiefied, at least not yet.

She had her timber-tangled hair tied up in buns, and looked about his age. She sat in a half foetal curl with one of her knees up to her chest and her arms around one ankle.

Neji stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her, shock in his blood and down his spine and over his skin.

And he thought, sure, it would be nice to have someone come along with him, but a human was certainly not a Tamagochi or a pet rock he could carry around in his pocket. Humans had _real _needs, and just like a goldfish needed to be taken care of, humans required things like _nourishment _and _affection_. They'd have to ration their food, build their own weapons, converse to ward off insanity… the list of responsibilities towards another human being, and more importantly a companion, were endless.

What if she fell ill? Died? What if she decided it would be a good idea to _eat _him_? _Or, god forbid, he fell in love with her?

Neji's eyes softened at the thought, and eased. What was he thinking? Perhaps it was the years of living alone that had made him so selfish, so inhuman. Of course he would take her with him.

He took a deep breath, and stepped towards her.

"Excuse me," he said. Neji's voice sounded tired and unfamiliar to himself. "Are you in need of assistance?"

"Oh—" She jumped up with a weird hobble backward. Neji felt relief grip his heart when he heard her high, feminine voice. "Oh my _gosh! _I haven't seen a person for—_"_

Then he saw something bright and red on her thigh and dropped his cordial demeanour immediately. "Have you been bitten?"

"No! I'm _stuck_," she said.

Neji grumbled and mumbled and sighed as he reached into his trolley for his sewing kit. His heart was going to pop out from his chest from all its palpitations, but Neji was convinced that it was only natural that he'd be so excited to see another human being for the first time in so long.

"So would you help me? I've got guns and food I can give you if you help me, _please_—"

She seemed too nervous and too desperate to take notice of Neji's discourtesy.

"Rest assured, I won't feed you to the zombies for brunch." Neji placed his kit in his chest pocket, grabbed one end of the debris, motioned for her to grab the other, and heaved. Though the load was not light, they were able to lift it off her leg. "Can you feel your leg at all?"

She bit her lip and nodded. Now that he had a proper view of her face, Neji knew deep down inside that there was nothing he could do to resist those gooey brown eyes.

* * *

She was quiet when he finished up the last stitch on her thigh (he was careful not to blush but did anyway) and came back with another pair of trousers for her to wear. Neji of course, looked away as soon as he was done sewing her up, and only faced her again when she had fabric riding over her legs.

Then Neji asked her, "Can you walk?" and offered her a hand. She took it.

"I think so." As she pulled on Neji's hand and placed both her feet flat on the ground, she took a confident step forward. Then another. Thank god she hadn't broken anything.

"Did you hear?" Neji began to look for the guns scattered around what was once her home. "There's a settlement to be erected at Greenleaf."

"Greenleaf beach?" she echoed, passing him the last of her ammunition. "I've never been there."

"I will be headed up that way." He hoped that she would catch on. She didn't seem to, so he said, "What, you won't come with me?"

"You'd take me with you?" She tipped her head to the side and grinned warmly, but tiredly.

"Neither of us would survive on our own."

"Oh, so you're going to eat me?" She laughed.

"No!" Neji glared, though he suspected that he looked funnier than he was menacing. His body language was rusty after months of no human contact. "Perhaps it _would _be better to leave you behind."

"Oh, please don't—" she said hurriedly, "Geez, can't you take a joke? I'm a bona fide shooting champion. I _am_, so give me a gun and I won't let the zombies touch a hair on your head."

"If you were so talented, then why..." He motioned towards the mess of the area around her.

"It's a long story."

"We have all the time in the world."

Her eyes enlarged as she looked beyond Neji's shoulder. "No we don't."

She pointed towards the horizon at a score of zombies that approached them. Their clothes were tattered, their flesh putrid and pungent from so far away. They seemed to move rather quickly to the distant rhythm of their grunts, their skinless arms outstretched for their prey and their legs baring bones through grey tissue.

"Jesus Christ," Neji said. "Get in the car!"

"No, those freaking rotting pieces of flesh took my home away from me." She fidgeted around. "And I can't go without my weapons."

"We can come back for them later." Neji cocked his gun. "Hurry!"

The girl shook her head and hobbled in the wreckage of her home to find a loaded gun. Neji really was reconsidering whether or not he should just give up this crazy girl who seemed to care more about her weapons than her life.

"That's no good," she mumbled as she stopped bustling about and took a stray revolver in one hand and a pistol in another. "I'll show you how it's done."

* * *

And it was _magic_. The zombies were a horrible sight to see with their eyes popping out of their sockets and rotting legs transporting them so quickly across the land. But she was there to drive all of Neji's nightmares away, slaying every last one with a perfect headshot, without waver.

It took perhaps a little more than a minute for all the moaning to stop. The zombies were stacked in up high in an undead pile and it stank like nothing he'd ever known.

Neji thinned his lips and tried to smile at the girl. He prodded a leak of brain to see if the zombie was still alive, and its lack of a reaction seemed to answer his question.

He then dipped into his bag, fished out a bottle of Grapey Goodness and presented his champion with it. She smiled, eyes downcast, and accepted, perking up as she popped open the cap of her purple beverage. She then paused, as if in search for a formality.

"Neji," he offered.

"Neat." She sipped. "I'm Tenten."

* * *

"I like your car," Tenten said as she hopped in his car, eyeing the bottled flowers suspended from his rearview mirror. "Oh, pretty."

"My cousin made them for me." Neji put his key into the ignition and one palm on the wheel.

Tenten seemed to have enough common sense not to ask. "I'm glad that you took me with you."

"Mmm." Neji tried to remember the route to the closest highway.

There was the longest pause before Tenten spoke again. "You think that we'll—"

"Could you keep track of this map?" Her question was buried beneath Neji's words. He leaned to his right, took the said map from under her feet and flipped to a bookmarked page. "Greenleaf should be circled with a blue biro."

And then she was silent; they had a long, long way to go.

* * *

Tenten liked Neji. Though he didn't talk much, he had done a great deal for her.

He'd fixed up her leg and asked for nothing in return, and though it was still sore and hurt a bit to step on he had applied antiseptics to it so that it wouldn't infect. If it weren't for him she might have been dead by now; she had no medicine left in her cabinets, and even if she did, they would have been burned away during the zombie raid that had catapulted her into this mess in the first place.

Then he had offered her a ride, companionship and the hopes of future at a place called Greenleaf.

He was also a work of art. Better than the pictures at her local, now-decrepit art gallery, Neji was a masterpiece, and her favourite one. With his handsomeness, he was incredibly easy on the eyes, and the thought of him bitten and putrefying only made Tenten all the more protective of him.

Tenten would look after him. She didn't really care about where he had come from; why he did the things he did, because he had been good to her and all she wanted to do was return his kindness.

She kept a gun by her side at all times. Even though Neji eyed her sometimes when she had one in hand, Tenten paid him no mind; their safety was far more important.

Tenten still thought that they would be fine regardless. Greenhill would be no more than a week away, if they stopped to sleep every night and took some more time to restock. And the road was smooth and clear. One of the best things about the apocalypse that the traffic was always good and there was no need to worry about red lights and going over the speed limit.

They had their fair share of petrol and more than enough food and supplies to go around for much longer than the week they needed. Plus, he had cartons of Grapey Goodness and those chips that came with the little mini kaleidoscopes and tiny electric fans. She _loved_ those things, and his stash of them was the first she'd seen in much too long.

So yes, it was going pretty well. No matter how large and quick the hordes were, most zombies could not best a tumbling van shooting through speeds of a hundred and fifty kilometres an hour. No, their limbs would fall off before they'd even begin sprinting. Instead, without their legs, they would lay undead and groaning on the ground to wait for the maggots to return their flesh to earth.

* * *

But somewhere down the road, things went horribly wrong.

It happened as they had a couple days left to go and Neji drove down an uncovered road over a rocky cliff that faced the distant sea.

Tenten had her window rolled down with the wind flinging her hair around in a careless, breezy fashion. She had kept the Grapey Goodness cap tucked away in her chest pocket and an electric fan slung over her neck. Music lilted in the foreground, and there was not a zombie in sight. Neji, almost smiling, was by her side in the driver's seat with his window rolled down, too, and for the first time in a very long time Tenten felt safe.

...But then, out of nowhere, a zombie popped in from Tenten's window and tried to suck the brains out of both of them. Screaming and careful not to touch that putrid, falling flesh, Tenten grabbed a crowbar and flung it at the zombie.

It was in the moment after that that Neji, having lost his balance, drove them into a boulder at the bottom of the road.

The world spun and there was nothing but the dreadful sound of the crash. Tenten was shaken, but unhurt when the entire ordeal was over; it was a miracle that the van hadn't gone up in flames.

Neji, however, as not as lucky as she was.

"Oh _god, _oh _shit_, oh no, no, no, oh _Neji_," she said, trying to make sense of it all as she ran her hands all over him. There was glass everywhere. "Where are you hurt? Tell me, please, please tell me."

"It's alright." His voice was weak. Neji turned towards her, blood and hair covering his eyes. His left arm was wound tight around his right. He couldn't offer up much resistance when she turned away one of them. "It's really... I'm—"

"Your arm's all messed up, isn't it?"

"I'm _fine,_" he said a last time. He was firm, resolute. "We should get going, if we want to get to Greenleaf by—"

"Forget about Greenleaf! We've got to get your arm fixed."

Tenten drew his chin towards her, brushed his cheeks clean, rolled up both their sleeves and groped for the sewing kit in her pocket.

* * *

Luckily, they were not too far away from a town. Tenten carried Neji via piggyback twenty long minutes to the nearest home, climbing in through a broken window with a couple cuts on her hands.

Tenten didn't sleep that night. The adrenaline was too far into her system for her to settle down. She had instead taken a red permanent marker, a flashlight and highlighted the shortest path to Greenleaf.

"We'll be by the beach the same time tomorrow," she said. "I promise."

Neji nodded, and then asked, "Did you take the bottled flowers from the van?"

"The one your cousin made you?"

"Yes, those," Neji said, and he sounded so tired.

"Uh huh." She reached into her pocket for them.

"Thank you." He made a small movement against the groove of her shoulder blade.

Then there was an impenetrable silence in the room before Neji said, "I always thought that it would be better that we stayed strangers. That would have made it easier if one of us—"

"Yeah," she sighed. She knew the process all too well. "But that's impossible, isn't it? If you don't have anyone but yourself to talk to for such a long time, you get all weird and jumpy. You don't have anybody to keep beside you and it makes you crazy, it makes you sick."

"You and me both." Neji scoffed nodded against the back of her head. "You know, back before all this lunacy, I was just another arrogant student who thought that I could change the world."

"And me, I wanted to compete in the next Olympics." Her chuckle carried with it a faint bitterness.

"You would have been good enough to go."

Tenten remembered her shiny trophies from back before the waves of undead took them from her, and felt a sob choke her throat. She reached for her pocket and clutched her smiling bottle cap tight in her hand.

There was another slight pause before Tenten said, "Were you close?"

"Who do you mean?"

"You and your cousin."

"Hinata? I don't know." He shifted. Tenten didn't need him to tell her that Hinata had been very important to him. "I don't know, because I had... I'd put an end to her."

"I'm sure you had to." And then Tenten spun around, careful not to touch Neji's poor arm, and hugged him around the waist. "I would have done the same."

Neji pulled his chin close to her shoulder, and mumbled against her hair, "You never told me how your shelter ended up like that."

"There were some survivors nearby and I was stupid enough not to dispose of their corpses."

"Now, that wasn't such a long story." Neji returned Tenten's favour and closed his arms around her back.

And there would be no more Olympics to win and no more opinions to prove wrong, only life to survive, promises to make, happiness to pursue and friendships to gain.

* * *

When the sun came up pink the following day and Neji and Tenten were still stumbling around in a semiconscious state, the house they had taken as their shelter was quickly becoming overrun with zombies.

They attacked in pairs at first, and were easy targets for Neji and Tenten. But then there were more of them flooding in at breakneck speed, frothing at the mouths, tattered tissue hanging outside their skin. Soon enough, Neji and Tenten were surrounded by rabid, rotting humans. Perhaps it was because they were fooled by the coast's low, low zombie population density, but they had let their guard down.

Furniture was thrown across the room, scalps were ripped and heads bobbled on the floor. The zombies were probably starving, because there seemed to be an entire mob of them rushing in to take a bite out of Neji and Tenten.

They were being drowned in the waves of zombies, clumsy reloading time and screamed advice not enough turn the living dead away.

For a moment, they were sure they would be undead; that in no time that their brains would be sucked out from their skulls like orange juice from a coconut shell. They would jerk around with rigor mortis settling in and develop a taste for human flesh.

"Neji, watch out!" Tenten yelled when a couple of big, scary zombies came up behind him.

Glass shattered and water splashed loudly against the floor. A table flipped and zombies came tumbling over their heads. Tenten shut her eyes and gripped Neji hand as a zombie's jaw closed in on his arm and—

And then, out of nowhere, came an intercepting fist.

"In the name of youth!"

There was a blur of green that rushed past them, too fast to be seen. The soft sound of wind played at their ears as their saviour swept across the room. Makeshift weapons clattering in their clammy fingers, Tenten watched the stranger obliterate the undead _with his bare hands_.

He cut through the zombies easily, and seemed to have no fear of their dribbling, infected saliva. His art was a beautiful thing to watch every time he punched or kicked; each move was like a lotus petal unfurling.

The stranger pushed the waves back and gave space for Neji and Tenten to make use of the tools they had around the room—the backs of their unloaded guns, picture frames, shelves and the pots and pans in the kitchen. The three went back-to-back, each of them straining in a different direction until they had smote their attackers to the last zombie.

* * *

When it was all over, it was Tenten who turned to their saviour, and asked, "Who are you?"

"I am Rock Lee, a disciple of the fountains of springtime and vigour!" The response was bouncy and enthusiastic. It was nice to have some positivity at the end of the world. When Tenten and Neji stepped out from under some fallen furniture Rock Lee gave them a smile so bright, he temporarily blinded them with light. He had a thumbs-up to accompany his grin, too.

"Thanks for saving us," said Tenten. She stepped over a few zombies, dusted off her clothes and helped Neji up. "What you did just now was _incredible_."

"We didn't think that we would find more survivors on the road." Neji took Tenten's hand, and extended another one for Lee to shake. "I don't suppose you are headed for Greenleaf, too?"

"A most youthful name!" Rock Lee nodded in agreement with himself. "It sounds like a splendid home for a squirrel."

Before that, they had not noticed the little patch of fur riding on Rock Lee's shoulders.

* * *

Lee ended up coming with them, and was fairly good company save for his tenacious enthusiasm about every last little thing. He seemed to have been a weird sort of guy who spoke like a twentieth century romance novelist of youth, eternity, springtime, lotuses, fountains and squirrels, in such an opulently optimistic way that his somewhat bothersome friendship was also somewhat difficult to resist.

"So what did you do before the, uh—" Lee said, gulping and stroking his squirrel, Lotus, "dead sprang up youthful again?"

Tenten was the first to reply. "I was a sharpshooter."

"Oh, a most youthful profession!" Lee's mouth stretched into a great big crescent. "How about Neji?"

"A student," Neji replied flatly.

Tenten stared off into of her tiny plastic kaleidoscope as she strolled along with her two new friends.

"And what did you do, Lee?" she asked absentmindedly.

"I told you, I am a disciple of youth!"

Tenten giggled and Neji rolled his eyes.

* * *

When they were up north enough, they scraped their way along the long, long beach. No zombies could be seen for kilometres at a time, and the three travellers were left with a subdued view that was no less clean than it was quietly romantic.

The sky was murky, the sand an anodyne yellow colour, and the waves came in two exciting shades: grey and gray.

Tenten appeared quite excited (and beautiful) when she stepped out on the sand, removed the scunchie from her hair, listened to the crash of the waves and smelt the ocean air.

"I've never really been to a beach before," she said. She squinted to see the lighthouse in the distance as she took off her shoes and steeped her blistery feet into the sand. "That feels funny."

Neji looked out and smiled. He saw it too. "We'll be there by the end of today."

"Yahoo! How about we have a race to the finish line?" Without waiting for an answer, Lee advanced and began to sprint across the sand.

When they saw that he was a good few hundred metres away, she slowed down so that she walked in synchronisation with Neji.

"Feels good to be alive, doesn't it?" she said. Tenten thumbed Neji's shirt and grinned at him, showing him the kaleidoscope and the Grapey Goodness cap in her hand. Neji felt his heart flutter and returned the gesture with a touch of her shoulder.

* * *

"Say, how long have you two known each other?" Lee said once they had caught up to him.

"Five days," said Tenten. She looked at Neji and smiled. "But I guess when it's the end of the world, that's kind of a long time, isn't it?"

With some hair draping over his shoulder as the ocean winds whipped through it, Neji dug his feet into the sand and kicked it across the shore. He seemed almost embarrassed when he mumbled, "That's true."

"And now that we've found each other," Lee said, scribbling in his notebook, "We shall stick together... won't we?"

"We'll have to," Neji said in all his seriousness. He crossed his arms and shrugged.

Tenten just smiled at the both of them.

* * *

Lee had then hooted around the beach for some hours after they made promises of friendships and dreams together, not stopping until they reached the settlement. Like weary travellers home after a long flight, their trolleys and belongings were strung around them in a tattered mess.

And Neji knew that they had been seen, because a boy, a blond haired boy with blue eyes and tattooed whiskers ran out to greet them not long after they arrived. When he was close enough Neji said, "Were you the one who made a broadcast the radio?"

"Yeah!" He smiled, the corners of his eyes squeezing when he did. It was the same hoarse, high voice Neji had heard on the radio a week ago. "Welcome, guys. I'm Uzumaki Naruto!"

Tenten eyed the walls that were being built around the lighthouse and the boats that were docked at the little wharf.

"Oh man, could you guys wait a second? I've gotta go and—I'll be right back in one second—Sasuke, Sasuuukkeee!" he called as he stumbled up the little knoll leading to the lighthouse. "We found _three _today. Three! And we haven't found a single survivor for weeks."

"More like we found you," Neji grumbled. He watched Naruto shout his news to the dozen or so lighthouse residents before he came sprinting back with what looked to be three cups of instant noodles.

And although Tenten wanted to submit to her growling stomach and aching knees and ankles, she had to ask Naruto something.

"Why were you able to find so many survivors around the coast?"

"Didn't you know? Zombies hate salt. They're like snails; you pour salt on them and they _shrivel, _just like that." Naruto passed her a cup, the delicious soupy smell filling her senses.

"Why, what a youthful observation!" Lee gushed as he took another steaming cup from Naruto.

"Heh heh, we'll filter some water and kick some arse." Naruto grinned. "Believe it!"

"Thank you." Neji accepted the last cup. He was a little too tired to appreciate anyone's enthusiasm at the moment, but he smiled regardless. "We'll do our best," he added.

"Yeah, we will," Tenten affirmed.

"And if we cannot find a cure by the same time next year, we shall run two hundred laps across the shore!"

In all earnestness, Lee then did what he called his Nice Guy pose. He had an eye squeezed shut, a thumb out in front and a great beaming grin on his face.

The three who once knew each other as strangers had since become inseparable friends. Then they acknowledged their newfound bonds with a grunt and a laugh, because they had come to the end of a crazy adventure, and the beginning of a brand new day.

* * *

we were strangers on a crazy adventure  
never dreaming how our dreams would come true  
now here we stand unafraid of the future  
at the beginning with you_  
_—**FIN**—  
_#6: At the Beginning_

* * *

**3/9/2011—8/9/2011:** So I haven't updated this in three months. No biggie. Here's a strange oneshot that did not turn out as funny as I intended it to be.  
...And hey look, sweet!Neji makes a return. I have a small completed ice age drabble ready, but I wanna post a nearly completed oilpeak!apocalypse beforehand. Here's to hoping I'll finish a bit sooner this time.


	7. Soft & Warm

Soft & Warm

"I would like to purchase a gun."

The ox-horned girl behind the counter threw Neji an almost smile and passed him a sheet of paper.

"Please fill out that form," she said, and went back to polishing her set of daggers.

Neji did as told, and presented her with the flawlessly forged permit that his uncle had given him that morning.

"Thanks." She put her daggers aside, took the two documents and placed them on the desk behind her. Her name tag flashed a dull copper as her blouse made the slightest shuffle. "Tenten" put a closed fist up against her cheek. "What sort of gun are you looking for?"

Neji looked overhead to see rifles, grenades and knives all strung out above her head. He grunted.

"Do you have a particular price range you're looking for?"

"That will not be an issue."

"Oh-kay... Would you like a pistol, a revolver or—"

"How about that one, with the silver handle?" said Neji, pointing to the biggest one he could see through the glass panel.

"Oh! Great choice." Tenten sprang alive. There was a twinkle in her eye as she began to introduce the weapon to him. "That's nine hundred and twenty-eight dollars. But I _promise _you that it's worth every cent, because the thing about this is that it's a genuine—"

"I'll take it," he said placidly, cutting her off. Neji placed her money on the table. "Keep the change."

* * *

Tenten wasn't sure what people were doing with her weapons.

There were customers who came to her shop with very dubious intentions as oil prices skyrocketed and her little business went slowly but steadily bankrupt. With the all the market crashes and suicide and crime rates printed down in the newspapers, Tenten had a sneaking suspicion her guns weren't actually being used for the reasons they were _supposed_ to be used for.

And that saddened her. Tenten wanted her weapons to settle down in nice homes with owners who used them for respectable things. She didn't want them to become tools of suicide. She didn't want them neglected in an oaky drawer somewhere or shoved down a crotch to commit acts of murder and robbery and arson.

It had been happening for quite a few weeks now, and she just wasn't standing for it any longer.

The man who identified himself as Hyuuga Neji was just about as alive as a rock when he came to her shop a week ago. He was really something special, with his good looks and all, even if he had seemed quite disinterested in life, with his dreary voice and dispassionate expression and all.

Tenten took action. Before he could come in to pick up his brand new pistol, Tenten had done some work with the gun he had ordered, gone out to the workshop in the back, barred the barrel and taken out the firing pin.

Neji wouldn't be able to hurt himself now, and he wouldn't even notice until he'd pulled the trigger.

Tenten allowed herself to smile at the thought.

* * *

Hiashi was not pleased when he returned the gun to Neji.

"Faulty," he said. His wrinkles were deep now, and the bags around his eyes accentuated by the dark shadows around them. "I insist that you ask for a return."

"That shop doesn't offer returns, uncle, sir," Neji said. His fist was quivering as he looked around the piles and piles of files and folders scattered around Hiashi. It was a goddamn paper Mount Olympus. But Neji never asked, it was rude to ask him why he did the things he did.

"Well, please do _something._" Hiashi dug his fingers into his scalp. "My boy, do _something._"

"Might I ask why?"

"I want to do this world some justice, son." Hiashi pushed back his glasses and breathed out sharply. "So please get our money back somehow. We'll need it with the times up ahead."

"Very well then."

Neji's brows furrowed and his eyes itched as he left Hiashi's sight.

* * *

Tenten was in the process of closing when Neji arrived, a large yellow leasing sign at the front. She was on her tiptoes, stretching for the shutter.

"Were you the lady who sold me this gun?" Neji said. He clutched his bag furtively as he rummaged for the pistol; it just wasn't safe on the streets anymore.

Tenten averted her attention from the shutters to Neji. She tried to smile at him, but the edges of her eyes were pink and distended, her lips drawn and chapped.

"Yeah?"

Neji stepped up next to her, put one hand on the shutter, and said, "Well, thank you."

Because he was a little taller than Tenten was, Neji reached up and pushed down the shutter with ease.

"Oh, thanks." There was that twinkle in her eye again. "So you thought it through?"

"Thought what through?"

"Weren't you going to k—" Tenten looked away quickly, loose strands of hair whipping behind her neck as she turned. She prayed that he wouldn't catch on. "...Oh, it's nothing. But um, thanks for helping me out here."

"You're welcome." Neji coughed, dusted off his hands and crossed them over his chest. "But, ah, I have business with you."

"Huh?"

"...Unfortunately, I'm here for a refund."

Tenten's expression remained as it was. "A girl's gotta eat. She's gotta pay her rent."

Neji clicked his tongue and glared full ahead. Not because he harboured any ill towards this woman. His family just desperately needed the money.

"I don't do returns," she insisted.

"I'm asking for a refund."

Tenten sighed sharply and tucked a brown lock of hair behind her ear.

"I can't write you a cheque, and I don't have that much cash on me at the moment—nobody does_._ You'll have to come back tomorrow."

Neji was torn between complying and arguing. Neji didn't exactly want Hiashi running around with a gun, either.

"I'm on a tight schedule."

"Have you an hour to spare, then? Now?"

Tenten looked impatient with her slouched position. Her bag was slung over her shoulder and her keys were dangling off her fingers. Neji checked his watch.

"I suppose."

Tenten drew a hand over her forehead. "Then come with me."

* * *

Despite the rapidly growing costs of transport, Tenten took the train home with her stranger like she did every day.

Gentle waves of an afternoon breeze sieved in from the cabin windows as they sped past scenes of trees and of memories being made in parks and playgrounds. The sky was tinted pink and purple in thin streaks of colour, rays of golden light filtered through the clouds, and heaven was open.

Although Tenten was unfamiliar with the heart of the man who sat beside her, a small part of her thought that maybe if she gave him back his money he might decide to not to kill himself. God, she didn't want that—even if she barely knew him, even if he barely knew her, it would be a damn shame for him to die because of financial issues or a girlfriend or whatever. There wasn't anyone alive who wasn't having the same kinds of issues nowadays, herself included, now that she just about had to say goodbye to her shop.

The day she put the deposit for her weapon's shop was the happiest day of her life, and losing her beloved store the darkest. From since she was a little girl, Tenten had quite the fixation on explosives and sharp, pointy things. Perhaps it was because each time she lit a firework, her heart battered aflame from the embers of the gunpowder that came sparking from the tail. Perhaps she had fallen—so deeply—for the intricate pattern of her father's katana and the way he wielded it, the way that it fit so perfectly in her hands when she first held it. From maces to flails, weapons were her everything. Some girls liked ballet, others opted for music. Tenten had her bull's-eyes.

So when she parted with her shop it was almost like losing a love, a vision, a dream. For five years she had polished and kept the company of all the tools she had in her arsenal. Each blade, gun, nun-chuck, bomb, spear and staff was a close friend, and Tenten had tried very hard not to become too emotional about the whole ordeal

But those attempts were in vain. As she failed to pay her rent and the economy began to collapse into chaos, sometimes she woke up with her head rested atop a heap of salty, crusted bills and panadol and wine by the glass of water at her side.

After she gave this Hyuuga Neji the rest of her money, she'd probably wake up in a state of disrepair and eat the leather off her boots for breakfast.

Nevertheless, the price of life took absolute precedent. Deluded in her logic, Tenten thought that maybe giving Neji some money would make him rethink his decision to depart this world forever.

Maybe with that little roll of cash Neji would go on a long holiday and calm himself down so that he could think it through. Just maybe.

* * *

Neji didn't need to see the autopsy results to know the cause of Hiashi's death.

They found him that morning, perfectly restful in his bed. No one wanted to "disturb his sleep," so it was only after lunch that anyone realised that something was very wrong with the Hyuuga's patriarch. By the time the ambulance arrived and swept him to the local hospital, Hiashi was announced dead on arrival.

Neji spent the rest of that morning trying to comfort his two cousins, saving his own sorrow up for later that night when he'd be able to cry alone, in the comfort of his very own bed.

They family had rallied up in the kitchen, sobbing whilst Neji bounced around trying to make some cinnamon buns for his two cousins.

The wildflowers growing through the cracks of their pavement ought to cheer her up, Neji thought, not quite shaking off his memories of Tenten, who was quietly elegant, with her ox-horned hair and a smile that brought crinkles around her eyes. He kept thinking about how, when he first placed his feet on the welcome mat of her frumpy apartment a week before and saw another lease sign outside her door, he knew he didn't want the money back anymore.

* * *

Never letting the guilt stop gnawing at him as he soldiered on through his day, once Hinata and Hanabi were capable of being left alone, Neji took the one-hour trip to Tenten's her money in his pocket, trying not to think about the fact that it was probably his fault that Hiashi was dead. He'd begun to see the signs weeks and months before, and he had done nothing about it. So unsurprisingly, Neji spent the rest of his journey in a mulling mess until he had reached his designated station and walked the short distance to her home.

There, after he climbed to her floor, knocked on door number ten, Neji caught a wiff of the scent of stir-fry and oriental spices and soy sauce that drifted through the air. The door opened just as Neji reminisced of the weekends he had spent cooking with his late grandparents in his boyhood.

"It's you!" Tenten was smiling, but her eyes still seemed a little rough around the edges. "What're you doing here?"

"I came to return your money," he said. Neji placed his hands in his briefcase, stepped forward and placed a small brown envelope in her hands.

"What would you do that for?" She had a winsome laugh. "You went to all that trouble—"

"You're too kind." Neji tightened his grip on the package. "But that gun was not to be used by me."

"Oh."

"My uncle he—" Neji stopped himself there (who was he to be telling his life story to a stranger?), but she seemed to _understand _what he meant to say regardless.

"Gosh, I'm _so _sorry." She kept the door ajar. "I..."

"It's rather ironical, isn't it, that you were the only one to have attempted to save him." Neji smirked and failed to withhold a bitter laugh. "I have to thank you for that."

"That's not a problem." She smiled again as there was a little pause between them, and it became clear that it was Neji's queue to leave.

"Well, goodbye to you," Neji said, motioning to go after he managed to balance the envelope in her hands, "Your lunch smells exquisite."

"Oh! Then you can come in and have a bite if you'd like," she offered. Her cheeks were dusted with a faint pink. "Just pay me with feedback—you'd be doing me a favour, y'know. Maybe I'll open up a restaurant when they fix the oil crash. The gun shop wasn't really good for making money, anyway."

"Oh?" There was a rumble in his stomach, and although he had been meaning to say_ no thank you, _the words that came out of his mouth were: "If I may."

And so, Tenten pulled the door wide open.

Neji stepped into her cosy little home, if reluctantly. His, eyes upon entering it, darted around the room, skipping from a panda plushie on her couch to tarot cards and a paper lotus spread out on her coffee table.

"Sorry about the mess," Tenten said. Neji had no idea what "mess" she had referred to; her home was nigh on spotless. Tenten pulled out a seat in the adjoining kitchen. "Have a seat."

There were already two steaming dishes on the table in front of him. But Neji didn't think it would be polite to eat just yet, especially not with Tenten sitting adjacent to him, folding dumplings and humming a song.

"Do you usually eat this much for lunch?" He didn't even think about how offensive his words were until they had already left his mouth.

"My neighbour eats with me sometimes." Thankfully, Tenten didn't seem the slightest bit insulted as she continued to focus on the dumpling in her hand. "His favourite colour's green and just between you and me; he's a little offbeat. But he's a good man."

"I see."

"You know, you don't have to wait for me." She waved towards the dishes on her table. "The chopsticks are by the sink, and I suggest you dig in before the food gets cold."

And so he did. Instead of being at the morgue making arrangements for Hiashi's funeral, Neji ate the best food in his life in the home of a complete stranger. Yet, he never felt that what he did was irresponsible by any means, because this was the girl who had almost saved his uncle's life.

Her mystery neighbour never came that day, and before Neji left he deemed Tenten to have known Hiashi well enough to be invited to his funeral.

Neji was surprised with himself when he asked it, and perhaps even more surprised that she considered his offer, scrawling her number and a panda on a sticky note that she punched to his chest pocket.

* * *

Tenten wasn't sure what to make of Neji.

While she was elated to have heard him praise her cooking, she felt bad to have accepted his invitation so soon. It was only the fourth time she'd seen him, so something must have been up with the glum, unfamiliar man. She wondered if Neji was actually interested in her or if he was trying to scam her for the little fortune she had.

Tenten poured herself some hot tea and laughed away both thoughts as she sipped. Both of them were absurd and she should have been ashamed of herself for ever coming up with them.

She was a grown woman, and she hated the awfully teenaged questions she asked herself. She was wrong to have thought Neji was going to kill himself, so now that the threat of that was over she didn't think she would have anything else to worry about.

So why had she ever considered going? Why did she give him her number as if she had been asked on a date? She remembered the last funeral she had attended—and her poor dad's dying breath—and deep down inside she knew why.

Tenten rubbed her forehead under her fringe and tightened her hold on her cup. It was useless to mull over the why and how and what ifs of coincidence and gratitude. She didn't know when she had become so aware of the dark side of human beings. Neji was probably just confiding in her as a friend.

And instead of pushing her head around in circles, she should have spent her time thinking of ways she could keep her home and get her hands on some food that might last the week.

* * *

Tenten actually showed up on the allocated Saturday in a pretty black dress with a bunch of lilies clutched to her chest. The fabric rustled as she walked around the corner of the street and towards the rush of retreating Hyuuga.

"So you came." Neji's eyes were wide as he acknowledged her. He backtracked and opened the gates of the cemetery for her. "I didn't think you would, and the service ended not long ago."

"I'm sorry." Her hands tightened over the white cellophane of Hiashi's bouquet. "But I wanted to meet him."

"He rests underneath that oak." Neji motioned towards a grand tree that billowed in the wind. The sky was grey and grim from behind it, and they would probably only have a few minutes more before it began to pour.

As he and Tenten made their way up the slope of the graveyard, Neji could hear footsteps and eventually, feel a hand grip him from behind. In the context of a graveyard haunted by vindictive souls, Neji spun around with his heart tight.

But it was only Hinata, whose usually clear and innocent eyes had never been so bloodshot.

"You frightened me, Hinata," he said, twisting around so he faced her. He motioned for Tenten to continue on without him.

"They're waiting for you," Hinata insisted. Though she made not a hint of a stutter, her voice was more broken than it had ever been. Hinata made a gentle pull at his suit and pointed at the honking private bus that was threatening to go.

"Let them leave without me." Neji pulled away from Hinata very gently. "You shouldn't worry about me so much. I'll make it back on my own."

"If you wish." She shifted her shawl higher over her neck. "Please be careful, you'll catch cold if you don't get back b-before—before it starts to rain."

"Thank you for your kindness." Neji hugged her tighter than usual. "The week has been especially difficult for all of us."

Hinata jutted her chin so that it rested on Neji's shoulder, and she clung tighter onto him so that her lips were by his ear.

Neji thought she might just burst into tears.

But she didn't.

"Is she your..." and she said the next word very quietly, "m-mistress?"

"No." Neji licked his lips. "Not at all."

"She's very beautiful."

"I know."

* * *

After Tenten had placed her flowers at the foot of Hiashi's tomb and said a few words, Neji escorted Tenten back home in the pouring rain.

They came into her unit drenched, and with squelching, heavy footsteps they waded up to her room.

"You can towel off and shower if you want," Tenten said as she let his coat slide off her shoulders. Neji shut the door behind him. "The clean towels are on the rack."

"I appreciate it," he said, and looked at her for an unbearably long moment. "So this is what death feels like."

Tenten tried her best to smile. She let her clothes drip over her floorboards. "You can cry if you want to. There's no shame in that."

"No." He put his hand on her head and moved very, very near. She hadn't been this close to a man in some time, and her insides were melting away. "My uncle—_that_ man does not deserve my pity. You've no need to try and console me. I don't—I am _not—_"

Tenten put a hand on his shoulder, wet through all layers of clothing piled over them.

There were raindrops scattered across both their faces, and it was difficult to tell if he was crying. Though Tenten had no way of confirming for herself whether Neji was weeping or not, he did look like he was about to break when he boldly clawed for the back of her neck, and lunged in for a kiss.

* * *

Her hair was wet against his skin, and there were still raindrops on her eyelashes when he swooped down so that their noses, their mouths and their foreheads were all bumping and nuzzling together.

"I thought it'd be _you_ who'd do that to yourself." She was a whisper against his collarbone, her voice distorted by the storm outside. Tenten put her hands under Neji's suit and ran her hands over the length of his smooth, bare back.

Neji peeled her dress back to welcome damp, peachy skin under his hands. He swept his fingers over her pulsating flesh, between and then under the humble lace of her bra and the soft folds of skin in the midst of all their shared wet, warm heat. Her heart was hot and erratic underneath his palms and her breath so tender, spilling and surging into his ears.

Black fabric covered the floor as she threw his suit across the room and he hurled her dress to the ground.

A couple of books and some pens on her desk came tumbling to the floor as Neji draped himself over the length of her body, his fingers pressing in on her thighs and her legs on either side of his hips.

* * *

The rain never stopped that day.

Tenten saw Neji eyeing her parents' monochrome photograph with his big gray eyes. She would have to change the rice in their bowl and buy some more incense and paper soon so that they weren't lonely or hungry in the afterlife.

"Are those your parents?" Neji asked. She could feel his knuckles bump against her stiff, soaked hair as he touched her jaw.

"Yes."

"Whatever happened to them?"

"My mum died right before I turned eighteen and my dad probably died of heartbreak the next month, because he loved her so much and couldn't bear to leave her side in this life or the next." It didn't hurt so much as the first time she had to explain the circumstances of her parent's deaths, but her stomach still dropped a little whenever it came up in a conversation.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Only eighteen..."

"Haha, don't give me that." Tenten put her fingers behind his ears and pulled him close so that their noses touched. "Don't..."

* * *

When Hiashi died, he had left behind nothing but debt.

A fortnight after his suicide, the family's balance steeply and steadily fell into negative figures. The global economy was dying and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

Blackouts were plentiful and bedlam raged in the cities day and night. The cost of oil went up and up and up, and the newsreels could report on little more than the problems the doubled peak oil was costing them. Some economists were calling it the end of days, a brand new Depression that would shock the whole world.

Neji and Tenten could feel it too. Neji only ever had the chance to meet Tenten's mystery neighbour once before he had to leave for better prospects elsewhere. Dressed entirely in green, Lee had interrupted a heated session of passion between them with his big voice, and stumbled in for an introductory handshake for Neji and a farewell kiss for Tenten. He had hugged the both of them, then, cried his manly tears and gave a few parting words in encouragement for the two to pursue the springtime of their youths.

Evictions became increasingly violent. Neji witnessed a rugged man and gargantuan dog barking down a family who owed him rent with a knife in hand. People began to lose their homes and took to living on the streets and lurked under staircases.

It wasn't long before the family announced to Neji that they could no longer afford to keep him. He hadn't felt so much betrayed as much as he did feel like a slave of fate. He packed up his things on a dark Tuesday morning and—not having anywhere else to go—washed up on Tenten's doorstep with his bags in tow and a frown to show.

"Neji!" Tenten opened the door halfway and stepped out from behind it.

"Is the unit still yours?"

"Yes, but wh—"

"I'll pay half of your weekly rent." Neji's shoulders were stiff and his fists clenched as he tilted his head towards Tenten in a slight bow. "If you would have me stay... with you."

"Whoa, slow down—" Neji dipped his head and let himself fall into her arms. She slowly brought her arms up meet at the back of his spine. "You don't have to be so polite about it. I'd really for like you to stay with me!"

"Thank you."

Neji held her tight.

* * *

Exactly half a year after Neji first moved in with Tenten, they _finally_ saved up enough money from odd onetime jobs for a proper dinner.

Tenten let herself smile on the way home. The plastic bags that hung around her fingers were full of flour, vegetables, spices and sauces that could last them a whole week. The bags pulled at her fingers, and all but tore open with all the weight.

It was seven in the morning, now, and Neji would be in for a pleasant surprise when he woke up. Tenten could tell Neji had worked hard at the construction site the day before, falling face first into their sofa when he came home in the middle of the night. She had closed the newspaper she was browsing for jobs, and sat on the arm of their couch to hear his explanation. He'd then asked in his most polite voice for a glass of water, please, and Tenten had just frowned upon his overexertion and granted his request with a heavy sigh and a kiss on the neck.

She knew how hard all that work could be. It was difficult and taxing to find work in itself. She and everyone else alive knew that all too well.

Tenten scratched her neck and as she spread her ingredients across the kitchen table and dreamed of the days she might be able to open up shop again or someday run a restaurant with Neji's help—as it was he who had suggested, fuelled and heartened those ideas. And then she thought about how she really loved him for the solidarity he brought with him when he came to stay with her, and the companionship he provided by waltzing into her life.

Her hands were still paper-cut from the deliveries she went around doing yesterday as she seeped them into the wetted flour. Her ankles still ached, but she liked having them as reminder and proof of her achievements.

She hummed while she worked, chopping capsicum, peeling potatoes and rinsing radishes. Three quarters of an hour in, Tenten stopped kneading when she heard a door open behind her. Half naked and half asleep, Neji came up behind Tenten, his arms around her neck and his mouth on her nape.

"You're awake?" Tenten put down her knife and breathed in. "I wanted to surprise you with..."

"Mmm." Neji's breath was warm on her neck and his nose cold on her spine. "Rock Lee called while you were away. Just checked the message, he says they're hiring at the mines."

"We'll go see if they have work for us tomorrow, then." Tenten sighed back into Neji as his hands came off her neck and sat on her hips. "See? Things'll get better. They always do."

Neji's arms flexed so that they were back over her shoulders and crossed over Tenten's heart. It was his way of telling her that he hoped so, too.

Tenten let her face drop into her hands. The onion she was slicing was getting into her eyes. And Neji's too, because his lashes were damp when they smeared across her spine.

"Damned onions," he said.

* * *

won't you stop and breathe  
tell me what you want to feel  
i could draw on all these things,  
baby I feel this beauty pull me to a...  
soft and warm, I know this all I need  
Why don't we learn to grieve?  
—**FIN**—  
_#7: Soft & Warm_

* * *

**A/N: **7-24th September. Neji and Tenten as adults, like in _Morning Tide_. I just came back from an exam fortnight and then delving into the glorious No.6 fandom. So wow, this is a quick update compared to the last! It's a dialogue heavy, limey and somewhat minimalistic oneshot. I'm sorry for the slightly gloomy plot.


	8. Tears below the Freezing Point

_Tears below the Freezing Point_

It has been years since the winter first settled in. Now, there is nothing above the surface that isn't encased in ice and frost and snow and death.

And their food, their energy and their lives will soon diminish with given time, because:

If there are no new crops grown they will starve.

If their oil reserves freeze up they will die of hypothermia.

There are few places in the world where water is still liquefied and accessible.

They no longer have the resources they require to continue production of medicines.

So they must think of some way to fight the cold, and they must find within five years or the world will be devoid of life and covered in nothing but permafrost.

* * *

But today is a burgeoning day of hope. Today the average temperature doesn't drop, but rises. Today the sun is out, it is the summer solstice, and it is finally warm enough to go outside.

The mist has cleared somewhat. The snow collects in flurries on Tenten's lashes, and she grips Neji's gloved hand in hers as they dance. Tenten holds Neji close and they slide across the ice, and _yes_, his throat is warm and his heart is warm and though his cheeks are cold they become warm when she puts hers against his and stills it there.

Neji spins her into his arms, and there is cold sweat forming at the corner of both of their brows.

It is laughable to think that there is a future that still remains for them. Rock Lee is waiting for them to come back underground, probably huddled against Supervisor Maito and probably still confident that forever will come for them in due time. But they will not go back; they might never go back, because they know that their time is running out.

Tenten does not like the dark, and underground it is sometimes so very, very dark. She lives to see the stars at night, and though she likes how cosy it is in their shelter she doesn't think she can live another day holed up in those catacombs.

And Neji will not be caged for the rest of his life in a squalid tunnel, because he cannot survive for too long without the sky. Though Neji is a sheltered slave when he is underground, outside, he is free, and liberation means more to him than safety.

So today they will spend one last day with their wishes on fire, a day he in which he will dream of flying and she will watch him soar.

* * *

They first met some Christmases ago when the cold first dusted in. Neither of them can ever forget their reluctant trysts down by their local park in the little pond hidden amidst the trees.

They remember their shy arms wound around each other's hips and shoulders, the bruises and cuts Tenten gained that winter as Neji taught her how to walk on ice, the stumbles and tumbles she endured before she could move across the frost without cutting up her feet.

Neji was a stunning skater, then, and he skates just as beautifully now.

Tenten envies him, because whenever he spins he does it so fast she thinks he might be lifted off the ground. He flies across the frozen water, every whirl and twirl a product of genius.

But then he catches her looking at him, so he takes her hand, shows her how it's done and makes her feel like it is their first winter all over again.

"I'll catch you," he says when she shows the slightest trace of fear. He doesn't quite smirk and he is softer when he repeats himself and tells her again, "I'll catch you."

So she accepts, and then they spin and they spin and they spin, out of their mittens and their coats and their underclothes, off the circular canvas of ice and into each other's arms.

They spin and they spin and stop, only when they are ready to let themselves be buried under the snow, where their bodies will the only warm things left in the world.

* * *

There is snow and open sky on their lashes and in their hair and over their skin. Their hands and limbs are knotted—warm—so if they stay like this their fingers will be frosted together, and they will become naked relics of what will be known as the old world.

Neji pretends his arms are great feathery wings that encase them and expel the cold. Tenten pretends that they are too, so he might take off and fly them to a warmer star to live on.

And then one last, unanswered question crosses their minds before their eyes are frosted shut forever: can tears be cried below the freezing point, or are they, like human life, merely ephemeral things that dissipate after the faintest vestige of a moment?

* * *

—**FIN**—  
_#8: Tears below the Freezing point_

* * *

**A/N: **_28/8/2011, extensive editing 3/10/2011_.Title taken from the hidden track of one of my favourite songs. The lyrics happen to lack an English translation.  
...So this was sort of an experiment. I wonder if it was a successful one.


	9. Make Room, Make Room!

_Make __Room, __Make __Room!_

When Tenten realised that Neji's name meant "screw", she burst in a fit of laughter.

"I hardly think that this is the right time to be laughing." Neji straightened his newspaper and continued, "The employment rate has dropped to _fifty-two _percent, and suicide rates are..."

"That's so sweet of you, Neji," Tenten said, creeping up to his naked lap and crossing her ankles, "I never knew you were familiar with the concept of compassion."

"I just—"

"You're not as tough as you make yourself out to be, are you?" Tenten purred and ran a bored finger over the tendons in his thigh.

Saying nothing, Neji draped his arm across her bare shoulder, and kissed her between the nooks of her shoulder-blades.

With Neji's lips ghosting its way up to her jaw, Tenten could only wonder—_why __him_—why him out of the billions that now populated the world. She seemed to have shuffled against every shoulder and bumped into each sweaty back in the city before she met him, and yet...

"Is something on your mind?" Neji said.

"Not particularly," she replied, and reached for the remote near Neji's hip. "I was just thinking about us."

"Us?"

"Yeah, us." Her elbow planted between his knees, she put her hand on her cheek and smiled up at him. "Remember when we first met?"

"I remember." Neji's brows puckered. "It was the hottest day of the year. There were hundreds of people in that subway tunnel."

Neji made a faint grimace as he touched upon the end of his sentence. Tenten laughed.

No, the circumstances in which they had first met were hardly romantic. Dozens of damp faces, wailing babies and smelly armpits had clustered around them in an all too-warm swarm of human mush. A delivery boy who went by the name of Rock Lee—in a rush to get to the other side of that wide sea of people—had then bowled them over like tenpins. His basket full of paper lotuses had then showered over all of them like a colourful tornado, and that was how the three had begun their lives together.

Neji chuckled too. Tenten flicked their television on.

She hoped that there might be something happy on for a change, but as usual, everything that aired was full of doom and gloom.

Overpopulation, global warming, an unsustainable natural environment, wars, pollution and rising rates of everything were being reported and lampooned all over the news. And the deviltries never stopped there. There seemed to be a genuine nuclear threat and, as if that wasn't enough to crush them like bugs, there was also the delicate global economy to worry about.

China was about to implode, it was so goddamned crowded. Japan had become a plump old woman trying to fit into her half-a-century-old wedding dress. India's slums were so big now that the slums themselves had sub-slums festering in them. The rest of Asia grew poorer and poorer each passing day, all of the Americas were a crying mess, and Europe's crib business was now its biggest enterprise. The AIDS pandemic in Africa upped in percentage every hundred babies per second. Poor Australia was being battered left and right by countries wanting more of its land. And even Antarctica wasn't safe anymore, with everyone dumping their rubbish near its fragile biospheres.

If they were to list _all_ the problems the world faced now, they'd be dead before they could finish.

"You know, some people are calling it the end of the world," Tenten moaned.

"I'd be surprised if it wasn't," Neji replied before folding his newspaper and putting it on his bedside table.

"So what do you think we'll do?" Tenten asked. Cool beads of sweat clumped at the hollow atop her tailbone. The relaxed atmosphere of their morning break together dissipated slowly but surely. "If we go on like this for any longer, I think people'll just start dropping dead on the streets."

Neji's hand constricted against Tenten's spine and when she looked up, he wasn't smiling anymore.

Tenten gazed at him worriedly, took a lock of his long, dark hair and kissed it. "Is something wrong?"

"No." He resumed the gyration of his palm against her back.

"You can tell me." She tightened her fingers around his hair and breathed in the scent of honey and milk. "I promise I won't be mad."

"It's not fair to you."

"Yes, it is! Remember that time when I showed up sweating puddles at your door with my bags, my _everything_—and you just..." Tenten strung her hand within his left side of hair. "You were just there for me? I _owe _you."

Neji's chest heaved heavily as he sighed.

"Must you know?"

"_Mmhm._"

Neji removed his hand over her shoulder and locked his fingers together.

"My cousin is," he said, enunciating a most painful pause, "Pregnant."

"Pregnant?" Tenten felt her eyes focus. "You mean Hinata or Hanabi?"

"Hinata." His voice was very, very soft.

"Hasn't she been studying abroad for a while now?"

"Now you know why she's been away for so long."

Tenten swallowed. "...Has she been approved by the agency?"

Neji shook his head.

"Oh dear," she said, clenching her fists, "who's the father?"

"She's not sure."

"For real?" Tenten sat up, her bare breasts bouncing as she shifted on the mattress. "How far along is she?"

"The baby's due next month." Neji massaged his temples. "Oh hell—the ponchos, I really should have known."

"It all makes sense now." Tenten rubbed her chin. "So she wasn't just making a fashion statement."

"I planned on telling you next week. This little piece of news only made its way to me some days ago." Neji clasped her fingers tight. "She doesn't want Hiashi to know. She gave me a call yesterday and asked me to pick her up tomorrow night."

"And do what?"

"Shelter her," Neji sighed.

"Where?"

"Anywhere she can have the baby in peace."

Tenten gave him her fiercest look, before she resolved, "I'm going with you."

Neji didn't discourage her decision, but did not hearten it, either. "This will be an _intractable_ journey for all of us, and I don't—"

"Oh my god, why didn't tell me _earlier, _you—gah!" Tenten sprung alive, jumped out of his arms and grabbed the first shirt she could find. "We'll need to make her some of those cinnamon buns she likes so much, get some flowers and call Lee and, and—"

"_Tenten._" Neji grabbed a hold of her wrist. "Might I stress that she hasn't been approved?" he said, his eyes broken and his brows slanted, "You _know _what happens to mothers who aren't approved."

"Yes, I do, but Lee—"

"Fine, you can call Lee." Neji grunted and went to look for some clothes in their cabinet.

"We won't let anyone know," she reassured. "You'll pick her up after I've got all the stuff done and we'll throw a little party here."

"That may be inappropriate."

"Neji, think about this for a minute." Dark nipples jutting from her thin, unbuttoned blouse, Tenten stopped flapping on her clothes and put her hands on either side of his cheek. "She's pregnant, alone, and doesn't even know who the father of her kid is. You think she's enjoyed these months zipped up thinking she did something wrong?"

Neji's voice was as placid as ever when he said, "Hinata could use a cousin like you."

"Huh?"

He never failed to make her blush even in the direst of situations.

* * *

Rock Lee stormed into the room with a twirl and a song.

"A happy, youthful morning to you both!" he chirped, his silky black hair a chirpy frame for his cute and unassuming face. "Have the lovebirds been vigorous in their love-making?"

"None of your business, Lee," said Neji, grunting as he lifted himself off the wall. Tenten seemed torn between laughing and smacking Lee upside the head. "And that's not why you're here."

"No, it isn't," Tenten agreed, crossing her arms and becoming solemn.

"Actually, why _is _he here?" Neji turned to Tenten and stared at her in askance. Tenten rolled her eyes.

"Why, I'd like to know!" Lee exclaimed excitedly, delightedly, "What is this most youthful surprise my dear friends have been talking about?"

"Well," Tenten sighed and drew circles with her feet. "We need your help, Lee. There's a rather precarious situation we seem to—"

"…Hinata's pregnant," Neji cut to the chase.

"Oh dear, oh _my_." For the first time today, Lee for stood still. "That _is _a precarious situation indeed, if I do say so myself."

"And um," Tenten continued, "She hasn't been approved."

Lee twitched and his eyes lit up with fear. "Surely the father…"

"She isn't sure who he is," Neji said.

Lee dropped his shopping bags, pursed his lips and slumped on the closest chair.

* * *

Neji drove them to the airport with uncharacteristic nervousness. Hinata had been the last person he'd expected to fall pregnant during such hard times, and now that she had, he didn't know what on earth he was supposed to do.

Traffic was awful, as always. Maybe five years ago it would have taken them a cool half-an-hour to reach their destination, but with traffic congestion and blaring horns in the damn way their journey clocked in at two long hours sitting in a stuffy car trying to crack jokes and keep themselves sane.

"Does she really want her child to be born in a godforsaken world such as ours?" Neji snarled as a shattered little car cut in a little too sharply from the left lane.

"Don't say such things," Lee said, his brows furrowing sadly, "There is still hope and youth left in the world yet."

Neji sucked in his lips and eyed Lee from the rearview mirror. His knuckles went white as he squeezed them around the steering wheel. "Sorry, Lee," he said, very softly.

"It's all right," Lee responded with a grin, "I know you feel powerless to stop anything at all, but you can still smile on and keep wishing for the best. Every baby has the chance to make this world right again. And I think that that's something to look forward to."

"We'll pull through this," Tenten reaffirmed confidently. "I hate to say it, but Lee's right for once."

Neji tried to smile and Lee tried to laugh.

The sky was orange and thick industrial trails of smoke bled through the streams of tangerine and yellow to paint a muggy picture of the end of the world.

* * *

Hinata was wearing a purple poncho when she stepped into the arrival longue, although even the oversized article of clothing did not do so well to conceal the bump protruding under it. She pulled a single red, wheeled suitcase along her, and made tiny ladylike steps towards her friends, her expression neither relieved nor apprehensive.

"Hinata!" Neji, Tenten and Lee called simultaneously, outstretching their arms in turn.

"Oh, Neji," Hinata cried, returning the favour, "Tenten, Lee…"

"Hinata!" Tenten said brightly. She pulled back from their cushioned hug and held Hinata by the shoulders. "How have you been?"

Hinata looked down, clasped her hands together and did her nervous thumb-twiddling thing. "Good."

"Tell us all about it," Neji said, without prejudice and as much kindness as he could muster, "when we get home for a cup of tea."

* * *

Over cups of tea poured into intricate china and over-iced cinnamon rolls, Hinata, Neji, Tenten and Lee discussed what was to come of the young woman's pregnancy.

It was definitely not a conversation most people would like to have, but it was nevertheless an important dilemma to discuss.

"Where do you plan on having the baby?" Neji said in his softest voice.

"A-anywhere but a hospital," Hinata mumbled. "They'll turn me in if I go to a hospital."

"So you plan to raise this child?" Neji folded his arms on the table and Tenten found the air thicken with each word. Lee was too busy eating to have noticed the shift in the atmosphere.

"I don't know." She twisted her wrists to make her tea swirl. "We'll see."

"_Hinata_," Neji warned, leaning over the table, "In a worst case scenario, your indecisiveness could lead to your death."

Hinata froze and Lee stopped eating. Tenten scowled and pinched Neji back into his seat.

"Neji, you're doing that thing again," she huffed.

"What _thing_?"

"The thing where you go and be a tactless drama queen, make yourself look stupid and hurt people and stuff everything up."

Neji grunted her remark off, Lee resumed eating and Hinata simply sat looking rather terrified.

Tenten closed her eyes and made a tired noise. "It's okay, Hinata. We'll work something out for you."

"We will!" affirmed Lee.

"We'll hire a caravan and go somewhere secluded, so you can have your baby there," Tenten said, slightly jittery. "It'll be absolutely fine. I'll hold your hand—I've done this kind of thing before, I think—and Lee'll help with all the relaxation shit and, um, Neji'll be an angel and get you your certificate of approval one way or another. It'll be fine."

Neji put a hand around the bottom of Tenten's waist and rubbed, calming her into a reserved silence.

* * *

The very next day, the three musketeers set out to find themselves a caravan and a place in which they could deliver the baby in peace.

Then with a heavily pregnant Hinata and a birthing manual in tow, they drove to the quietest place they could find in the countryside to wait out the rest of the month.

It must have been strange for Hinata to have found herself at the centre of such a mess, as she probably had not anticipated the chain of events that had lead up to the moment her water broke. None of them had—not even the father of the child. And at what odds would he have to reclaim his offspring? A reunion between lost parent and misplaced child was unlikely, as Hinata would probably not find him again, and she probably would not want to do so.

Hinata had confessed she had had a small string of flings around the time her child was conceived, and narrowed her candidates down to a big-hearted roguish wolf-boy who had driven her all the way to the sea, and a drunken night spent with a tenacious blue-eyed, blond bombshell. Neji had not seen her in person for almost two years, and the ostensible courage she showed in pursuit of her romantic endeavours surprised him.

But Hinata would still make a wonderful mother, no doubt; she was kind and patient, and could take care of anyone but herself. Her son or daughter would delight in the meals she cooked and the flowers she pressed, and grow up strong and compassionate children who practiced all the virtues of the world.

And it was strange how a pregnant cousin could make a man suddenly think about life as it was. Reflections about the future of his cousin—rather egotistically—soon drifted into consideration about his own future and that of Lee's, and Tenten's.

Though he had only known them for a modest fraction of his life, Neji felt as if he had been bonded to them now inseparably. Although they had never resorted to such sappy sentimentalism in discussing that unspoken connection, Neji knew that they felt the same as soon as they hopped on to assist Hinata's childbirth without a single doubt raised.

Lee, who was idealistic and unwavering in his devotion to humankind, was childish in his ways and the best person out of them all. He saw everything as an opportunity for something good to happen, treated everyone like he'd known them all his life, and fell in love fast and hard. There needed to be more people like him in a dying world like theirs, and Neji wished him all the happiness in the world.

Tenten was down-to-earth in her integrity, and beautiful and fierce in everything she did. She never lied to please someone else, but always offered a shoulder to those who needed one. She, like Lee, could be endearingly unconventional at times, with her eccentric hairdos and fixation on sharp, pointy things. In the years he'd been with her, Neji knew her to have been never indecisive and always helpful. And she was sexy and voracious, honest and practical, and Neji didn't want—didn't need—anything more.

Ever since the first time Neji had seen and kissed her hips, her breasts, and all the other groves and curves and clefts that made up her body, he had been enamoured with them. While he supposed that in a different time and place they might have gone on to make a baby, the situation at hand would never have given them a chance to do so. That wasn't to say Neji did not like the way things were now, because he did, and he wasn't sure if either of them were up to putting her through the pressure and the pain Hinata was experiencing now.

The world was ending, and although there was little space left for newcomers to fit into that overcrowded earth, Neji had lived his life in it to meet people he cherished and memories he'd never forget, and that was as good of an achievement you could accomplish during the apocalypse, wasn't it?

Neji thought about all these things as he sponged the sweat off Hinata's brow, his knees soaking wet with the blood and water that had seeped through the carpet. The scene was a gory mess, with Hinata screaming and squirming on the bed, Neji squeezing her hand, Lee hopping to and fro with towels in his arms and Tenten steadying the poor girl in bouts of, "push, push," in an age-old cliché anyone would have seen on television over and over again.

And after what seemed like hours of hushed encouragement and triumphant cries and sudden revelations, the miracle and blight of life entered that very caravan room.

Tenten was all splitting grins and congratulations, and Lee a puddle of manly tears and coos. Hinata seemed tired, but when she held her daughter in her arms with her little fingers, little feet, little smile, she glowed brighter than ever before.

Neji himself felt awash with a sense of camaraderie and pride, and hoped with all his might the world would be generous enough welcome and make room for just _one_ more soul.

* * *

—**FIN**—  
_#9:__Make __Room, __Make __Room!_

* * *

**8/9/2011****—****15/10/2011: **So I wrote two-thirds of this chapter today. Writing for this collection always makes me feel immensely happy, for some reason. But I've got only two half-fleshed ideas written down in my files to go. So if anybody wants to make a request, now is probably a very good time to do so.


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